In principle @TheDancingYak I’m sure you’re right but I think most of us thought that Fred, more than any other member of the squad perhaps, would have been prepared to stick with the club at least for another season, recognising that, in recent months, he had become a very important and integral part of a much improved (and clearly Championship ready) team. That is the irony really.
As many on here have said, up until recently, he had tended to blow hot and cold and, arguably, had not made the degree of progress we had anticipated. He was on very good money here for a single (?) 24 year old and that makes me wonder if he has got his priorities right. Time will tell.
It may be that, despite how brilliantly he adapted to the wing back role, he was unhappy in that position. He may, rightly perhaps, see himself as an out and out goal scoring attacker. Many of us wanted to see him played as a central attacker and, from comments made by the Reverend Nathan Jones, that is how he will be used, possibly even from midfield.
@micra said:
In principle @TheDancingYak I’m sure you’re right but I think most of us thought that Fred, more than any other member of the squad perhaps, would have been prepared to stick with the club at least for another season, recognising that, in recent months, he had become a very important and integral part of a much improved (and clearly Championship ready) team. That is the irony really.
As many on here have said, up until recently, he had tended to blow hot and cold and, arguably, had not made the degree of progress we had anticipated. He was on very good money here for a single (?) 24 year old and that makes me wonder if he has got his priorities right. Time will tell.
It may be that, despite how brilliantly he adapted to the wing back role, he was unhappy in that position. He may, rightly perhaps, see himself as an out and out goal scoring attacker. Many of us wanted to see him played as a central attacker and, from comments made by the Reverend Nathan Jones, that is how he will be used, possibly even from midfield.
On the flip side, maybe he doesn't want to be a left wing back long term.
And recognises that although his wage here is superb for a 24 year old in the scheme of things he's in a job that could end with one bad challenge and that he has potentially 50 years after retirement to fund from what he earns over this 10-15 year max period.
So perhaps doubling his wage for an immediate move to the champs, as much as we don't want to hear it actually is getting his priorities right?
I see a key part of that being never to stand in the way of a player if a team from a higher division comes knocking or we put things in place so it is mutually beneficial (longer term contracts for players, release clauses etc.
This is a great way of clubs of our size to bring in players that are probably better than you could normally sign.
I have a very strong suspicion that this is exactly what we / GA does.
If you don't kick up a fuss / stand in a players way when a club from a higher division comes calling then you have much better chance of signing players who have lost their way.
Agents will know this and we could fine players steered in our direction of 'bigger' clubs because of this.
I think we are already seeing signs of this when signing loan players. The culture around the club makes it a good place to come to go and get experience of 1st team football for younger Premier League players.
I comprehend it totally. I am forever trying to get the message across that, as @mooneyman puts it, professional footballers have a short career, sometimes curtailed or ended by serious injury and it makes complete sense for them to make hay while the sun shines. But circumstances vary and the best situation for any player isn’t necessarily where the money is greatest.
What I was trying to put across had nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of Fred’s or his agent’s decisions. It was an attempt to explain why, virtually unanimously, we were feeling so gutted to learn, very unexpectedly, that Fred had gone.
I am pretty sure @Malone that you are right about Fred not wanting to be a left wing back long term and I said so in my last paragraph.
I don’t think there’s much in my post that anyone can reasonably take issue with, provided it can be seen as what it is - an attempt to understand why, almost without exception, the reaction was one of surprise, disappointment and sadness.
@micra said:
In principle @TheDancingYak I’m sure you’re right but I think most of us thought that Fred, more than any other member of the squad perhaps, would have been prepared to stick with the club at least for another season, recognising that, in recent months, he had become a very important and integral part of a much improved (and clearly Championship ready) team. That is the irony really.
I do have a one word answer to this, but please allow me to put my thoughts down.
The one word answer is “why?”.
As a supporter of WWFC I can full see that side of the argument. We all would like to think that our best player(s) would want to stay with the team and within the group. We could have a great season for us next year. For us mere mortals or Sunday afternoon hackers it would be our dream to play for wwfc and wouldn’t want to leave our club.
But For a 24 year old, professional footballer, who has proven himself in a championship side, entering the 2nd 1/3 of his footballing career and who is likely to be ambitious and perhaps has his eyes on playing in the top league one day, it’s an absolute no brainer to go to any championship team next season.
I’m not saying he’s in the same league technically as Eze, but who knows - but he should be looking at him as a great example. By Christmas he could be flying for Luton and making premier league teams take note. At his age, that should be his aim even if I personally think the chance of that is slim.
For all of the reasons I am very excited about next season, I am equally fearful that one by one the players we are excited about seeing next year will find teams in the championship willing to take a punt on and will want to pick them up between now and the end of the transfer window.
And that’s not even touching on the wage question between a league one and championship player.
@TheDancingYak said:
For all of the reasons I am very excited about next season, I am equally fearful that one by one the players we are excited about seeing next year will find teams in the championship willing to take a punt on and will want to pick them up between now and the end of the transfer window.
That was the key point I took from Gareth's video. Parsing what he said it's pretty clear that he's offered contacts to Muskwe and Adeniran but that they've decided to wait to see if any Championship club comes along first. The gamble Gareth is taking is that no one comes in with a more attractive offer and they come back to daddy closer to the start of the season. Probably with a clause in their contract that they can leave for a club in a higher league in a future window if a suitor meets (what's likely to be a low) transfer fee threshold.
That's why we have to remain patient. I guess the analogy is thus: if you want a pair of snakeskin boots but have a limited budget isn't it better to hope the bespoke pair on sale in the Versace store don't get snapped up and are instead put into the end-of-summer sale when the store knows it has to reduce price to sell, rather than head to Mad House and spend the same amount immediately on the knock off pair which look pretty similar but you have a sneaking suspicion will fall apart at the seams as soon as it starts raining?
Same as every year at this time. Out of contract players are still being paid, mortgage is covered, the holiday brochure is still being thumbed through (slightly less this year maybe), agent is still over-promising that deal.
When the 1st of July rolls around and the player is now officially unemployed and the car finance direct debit is coming due there tends to be an adjustment in expectations. The agent says that interest from Real Madrid never materialised as they are looking in other directions at the moment but Wycombe are still interested sooooo......
Interested to know what Bayo is thinking regarding his future though. I am sure he is not being rushed but it will have an impact on wages and squad numbers.
I was delighted from the interview with GA to hear that Darius would be welcomed back when he is ready.
It will certainly be interesting to see Fred playing up front in a team who play 2 strikers, and who are a middle of table team.
Not a given he'll be a regular though, as he wasn't at Millwall, and we've just seen it's a big leap between being a strong player in league to a game changer in the championship.
We wish him well, and move on to more pressing concerns - how we're shaping up.
Gareth's comment about it being hard to get players to Wycombe did not sound promising. Although the bit about spending fees did.
are disappointed to see Fred go
understand the realities of life as a pro footballer
are slightly surprised at the way it's been handled by the club's media team
hope he somehow manages to prosper as Luton struggle.
This is the really galling aspect of being relegated - we had a platform in place to be an even stronger team next season in the Championship. As it is, we may struggle to field a L1 team that is quite as dynamic as we hoped. Not exactly unexpected or unusual, of course, just a little bittersweet that the greatest Wycombe team in history has to be broken up to some degree (even if part of that is loanees not wanting to come back).
You're right, @Shev. But don't despair. GA seemed pretty confident that with what he has already, and what he feels he is realistically likely to be able to add (with additional financial muscle to clinch deals, unlike before) he will start next season with his strongest squad ever.
That's decent place to be. And with the addition of fans in the stadium, which is really important to him (and to us all), it's not surprising that he is so excited and wants the season to start tomorrow!
He's asked for patience. I'm happy to allow him that, especially as there are still a lot of decent snakeskin boots in our size on the shelves.
@LeedsBlue said:
You're right, @Shev. But don't despair. GA seemed pretty confident that with what he has already, and what he feels he is realistically likely to be able to add (with additional financial muscle to clinch deals, unlike before) he will start next season with his strongest squad ever.
That's decent place to be. And with the addition of fans in the stadium, which is really important to him (and to us all), it's not surprising that he is so excited and wants the season to start tomorrow!
He's asked for patience. I'm happy to allow him that, especially as there are still a lot of decent snakeskin boots in our size on the shelves.
Great post. I agree we will have a strong squad and something to be excited about all over again. We are at that bittersweet stage of "what might have been" with this specific iteration of the team, but the next iteration will be just as fun, I am sure!
Not sure we should be worried about a mass exodus. Uche is the one I'd be most fearful of leaving - he'd be the hardest to replace - but he's got two years left on his contract, so you'd hope it would take a decent wad to prise him away if worse came to worst. It wouldn't surprise me if no one else left now, though.
@ReturnToSenda said:
Not sure we should be worried about a mass exodus. Uche is the one I'd be most fearful of leaving - he'd be the hardest to replace - but he's got two years left on his contract, so you'd hope it would take a decent wad to prise him away if worse came to worst. It wouldn't surprise me if no one else left now, though.
Exactly this.
Some of the outpouring of grief over Fred has been a little bit confusing.
It's Uche leaving that would change the whole dynamic and style of play of our team.
There was talk of buying this single player who would keep us up.
Uche being fit for that first half a season would have been that player.
@Wendoverman said:
Its a shame we've gone from not having a squad good enough for the Championship to, it seems, struggling to put together a team strong enough for L1.?
I don’t think anyone has said that Wendy.
More a mental preparation we might lose a couple more of those that starred int he team before the start of next season.
Perhaps Fred wasn't happy that from week to week he would have little idea of whether he'd be in the starting 11 (he started in little over half the league games) or what position he might be asked to play. I suspect he's not the only player unhappy with Ainsworth's scatter gun selection policy.
Ahhh @doob raises an interesting point made many many many times before...more money to continue to play at a higher level? or go anywhere to escape from our famously appalling manager and his unhappy squad? Which was it I wonder?
I think Fred's poor form in the 1st half if the season was the major factor in him not being in the starting XI on a regular basis, rather than any scatter gun selection policy.
In the 2nd half of the season and particularly towards the end of the season his form was very good and he therefore found himself starting most games. Seems a fairly standard way of selecting players.
@Wendoverman said:
Ahhh @doob raises an interesting point made many many many times before...more money to continue to play at a higher level? or go anywhere to escape from our famously appalling manager and his unhappy squad? Which was it I wonder?
Neither. He was disillusioned with the lack of a plan B.
@ReturnToSenda said:
Not sure we should be worried about a mass exodus. Uche is the one I'd be most fearful of leaving - he'd be the hardest to replace - but he's got two years left on his contract, so you'd hope it would take a decent wad to prise him away if worse came to worst. It wouldn't surprise me if no one else left now, though.
I don’t see too many players leaving that are under contract. Maybe Nick Freeman but I think he’s worth hanging onto as a squad player, unless an offer comes in where GA does right by him and let’s him start every week in league 2 or national league
Of course, there could be offers that are tough to turn down but I can’t see too many jumping ship just yet...
Comments
In principle @TheDancingYak I’m sure you’re right but I think most of us thought that Fred, more than any other member of the squad perhaps, would have been prepared to stick with the club at least for another season, recognising that, in recent months, he had become a very important and integral part of a much improved (and clearly Championship ready) team. That is the irony really.
As many on here have said, up until recently, he had tended to blow hot and cold and, arguably, had not made the degree of progress we had anticipated. He was on very good money here for a single (?) 24 year old and that makes me wonder if he has got his priorities right. Time will tell.
It may be that, despite how brilliantly he adapted to the wing back role, he was unhappy in that position. He may, rightly perhaps, see himself as an out and out goal scoring attacker. Many of us wanted to see him played as a central attacker and, from comments made by the Reverend Nathan Jones, that is how he will be used, possibly even from midfield.
On the flip side, maybe he doesn't want to be a left wing back long term.
And recognises that although his wage here is superb for a 24 year old in the scheme of things he's in a job that could end with one bad challenge and that he has potentially 50 years after retirement to fund from what he earns over this 10-15 year max period.
So perhaps doubling his wage for an immediate move to the champs, as much as we don't want to hear it actually is getting his priorities right?
Precisely, and that is exactly how his agent would advise him. As the old saying goes, make hay while the sun shines.
Exactly, it amazes me people can't comprehend this
This is a great way of clubs of our size to bring in players that are probably better than you could normally sign.
I have a very strong suspicion that this is exactly what we / GA does.
If you don't kick up a fuss / stand in a players way when a club from a higher division comes calling then you have much better chance of signing players who have lost their way.
Agents will know this and we could fine players steered in our direction of 'bigger' clubs because of this.
I think we are already seeing signs of this when signing loan players. The culture around the club makes it a good place to come to go and get experience of 1st team football for younger Premier League players.
I comprehend it totally. I am forever trying to get the message across that, as @mooneyman puts it, professional footballers have a short career, sometimes curtailed or ended by serious injury and it makes complete sense for them to make hay while the sun shines. But circumstances vary and the best situation for any player isn’t necessarily where the money is greatest.
What I was trying to put across had nothing to do with the rights or wrongs of Fred’s or his agent’s decisions. It was an attempt to explain why, virtually unanimously, we were feeling so gutted to learn, very unexpectedly, that Fred had gone.
I am pretty sure @Malone that you are right about Fred not wanting to be a left wing back long term and I said so in my last paragraph.
I don’t think there’s much in my post that anyone can reasonably take issue with, provided it can be seen as what it is - an attempt to understand why, almost without exception, the reaction was one of surprise, disappointment and sadness.
I should have put @HolmerBlue after my first sentence. @Guppys_Left_Leg’s post appeared whilst I was laboriously tapping!
I do have a one word answer to this, but please allow me to put my thoughts down.
The one word answer is “why?”.
As a supporter of WWFC I can full see that side of the argument. We all would like to think that our best player(s) would want to stay with the team and within the group. We could have a great season for us next year. For us mere mortals or Sunday afternoon hackers it would be our dream to play for wwfc and wouldn’t want to leave our club.
But For a 24 year old, professional footballer, who has proven himself in a championship side, entering the 2nd 1/3 of his footballing career and who is likely to be ambitious and perhaps has his eyes on playing in the top league one day, it’s an absolute no brainer to go to any championship team next season.
I’m not saying he’s in the same league technically as Eze, but who knows - but he should be looking at him as a great example. By Christmas he could be flying for Luton and making premier league teams take note. At his age, that should be his aim even if I personally think the chance of that is slim.
For all of the reasons I am very excited about next season, I am equally fearful that one by one the players we are excited about seeing next year will find teams in the championship willing to take a punt on and will want to pick them up between now and the end of the transfer window.
And that’s not even touching on the wage question between a league one and championship player.
That was the key point I took from Gareth's video. Parsing what he said it's pretty clear that he's offered contacts to Muskwe and Adeniran but that they've decided to wait to see if any Championship club comes along first. The gamble Gareth is taking is that no one comes in with a more attractive offer and they come back to daddy closer to the start of the season. Probably with a clause in their contract that they can leave for a club in a higher league in a future window if a suitor meets (what's likely to be a low) transfer fee threshold.
That's why we have to remain patient. I guess the analogy is thus: if you want a pair of snakeskin boots but have a limited budget isn't it better to hope the bespoke pair on sale in the Versace store don't get snapped up and are instead put into the end-of-summer sale when the store knows it has to reduce price to sell, rather than head to Mad House and spend the same amount immediately on the knock off pair which look pretty similar but you have a sneaking suspicion will fall apart at the seams as soon as it starts raining?
Like Stuart Green?
Same as every year at this time. Out of contract players are still being paid, mortgage is covered, the holiday brochure is still being thumbed through (slightly less this year maybe), agent is still over-promising that deal.
When the 1st of July rolls around and the player is now officially unemployed and the car finance direct debit is coming due there tends to be an adjustment in expectations. The agent says that interest from Real Madrid never materialised as they are looking in other directions at the moment but Wycombe are still interested sooooo......
Interested to know what Bayo is thinking regarding his future though. I am sure he is not being rushed but it will have an impact on wages and squad numbers.
I was delighted from the interview with GA to hear that Darius would be welcomed back when he is ready.
It will certainly be interesting to see Fred playing up front in a team who play 2 strikers, and who are a middle of table team.
Not a given he'll be a regular though, as he wasn't at Millwall, and we've just seen it's a big leap between being a strong player in league to a game changer in the championship.
We wish him well, and move on to more pressing concerns - how we're shaping up.
Gareth's comment about it being hard to get players to Wycombe did not sound promising. Although the bit about spending fees did.
I think most of us
are disappointed to see Fred go
understand the realities of life as a pro footballer
are slightly surprised at the way it's been handled by the club's media team
hope he somehow manages to prosper as Luton struggle.
This is the really galling aspect of being relegated - we had a platform in place to be an even stronger team next season in the Championship. As it is, we may struggle to field a L1 team that is quite as dynamic as we hoped. Not exactly unexpected or unusual, of course, just a little bittersweet that the greatest Wycombe team in history has to be broken up to some degree (even if part of that is loanees not wanting to come back).
You're right, @Shev. But don't despair. GA seemed pretty confident that with what he has already, and what he feels he is realistically likely to be able to add (with additional financial muscle to clinch deals, unlike before) he will start next season with his strongest squad ever.
That's decent place to be. And with the addition of fans in the stadium, which is really important to him (and to us all), it's not surprising that he is so excited and wants the season to start tomorrow!
He's asked for patience. I'm happy to allow him that, especially as there are still a lot of decent snakeskin boots in our size on the shelves.
Its a shame we've gone from not having a squad good enough for the Championship to, it seems, struggling to put together a team strong enough for L1.?
Great post. I agree we will have a strong squad and something to be excited about all over again. We are at that bittersweet stage of "what might have been" with this specific iteration of the team, but the next iteration will be just as fun, I am sure!
Not sure we should be worried about a mass exodus. Uche is the one I'd be most fearful of leaving - he'd be the hardest to replace - but he's got two years left on his contract, so you'd hope it would take a decent wad to prise him away if worse came to worst. It wouldn't surprise me if no one else left now, though.
I have a feeling that Horgan would be allowed to go without much of a fight if an offer came in
Exactly this.
Some of the outpouring of grief over Fred has been a little bit confusing.
It's Uche leaving that would change the whole dynamic and style of play of our team.
There was talk of buying this single player who would keep us up.
Uche being fit for that first half a season would have been that player.
Agreed, especially as he's realistically third in the pecking order for that spot behind the strikers - assuming we stick with the system.
"outpouring of grief"
FMOB, as someone used to say
Uche will tear up L1 for sure (if healthy). 6 goals in half a Championship season certainly would equate to many, many more in a full L1 season!
If we sign Muskwe too, teams are going to have their hands very, very full.
I don’t think anyone has said that Wendy.
More a mental preparation we might lose a couple more of those that starred int he team before the start of next season.
Perhaps Fred wasn't happy that from week to week he would have little idea of whether he'd be in the starting 11 (he started in little over half the league games) or what position he might be asked to play. I suspect he's not the only player unhappy with Ainsworth's scatter gun selection policy.
I don’t know, it seems like a remarkably happy and united group of players.
Ahhh @doob raises an interesting point made many many many times before...more money to continue to play at a higher level? or go anywhere to escape from our famously appalling manager and his unhappy squad? Which was it I wonder?
I think Fred's poor form in the 1st half if the season was the major factor in him not being in the starting XI on a regular basis, rather than any scatter gun selection policy.
In the 2nd half of the season and particularly towards the end of the season his form was very good and he therefore found himself starting most games. Seems a fairly standard way of selecting players.
Neither. He was disillusioned with the lack of a plan B.
I don’t see too many players leaving that are under contract. Maybe Nick Freeman but I think he’s worth hanging onto as a squad player, unless an offer comes in where GA does right by him and let’s him start every week in league 2 or national league
Of course, there could be offers that are tough to turn down but I can’t see too many jumping ship just yet...