Summer transfer thread | Page 59 | Vital Football

Summer transfer thread

HudWiganFan said:
Seems the pursuit of Mahmoud Gad has hit a roadblock over a permit... quelle surprise...
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I'd look at Plymouth keeper Michael Cooper, already played 100 games despite being 22, was the best keeper in L1 last season, golden gloves, team of season, both young and senior player of year for his club. If we've got 1.5m to spend on a keeper I'd look at making an offer for him as you wouldn't have to worry about work permits, settling into new league, language, culture, etc.

Huge potential and resale value if we could get him. They sold Ladapo to Rotherham for 500k a couple of years ago after he scored 20 goals, so based on that you'd think Cooper may not be crazy money.

If we got him and Camara that would be spot on for me.
 
HudWiganFan said:
Can scratch Kell Watts off the list of potential 4th CBs, he's just had surgery on a knee injury sustained in preseason.

Will it be Carragher who gets the nod there in the end?
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I think Tilt will start the season as left CB and depending how he does in the first few games may dictate what we do.

If he steps up well we may just use Bennett, Nyambe, Carragher as spare centre back options but if he struggles I think we'll look to bring in someone to replace him as first choice. At the moment we don't know how Tilt will step up (or Whatmough or Kerr) so we probably need to hedge our bets on how to potentially best use the budget.
 
Latest gossip coming out of the Egyptian press is we have abandoned our move for Gad who is Egypt's 3rd choice keeper and have switched our attention to Egypt's 1st / 2nd choice Muhammad Abu Gabal 'Gabaski'. Apparently we've offered a 2 year deal and he is 'undecided'.

Gabaski appears to be hugely experienced and successful playing for the biggest club in Egypt, Zamalek (where we got Zaki from). He is also coming off the back of an impressive African Cup of Nations were he saved multiple penalties to help get Egypt to the final were he was man of the match. He didn't get the award for best goalkeeper but apparently he should have. He is 33 and had signed a pre contract after the ACON with a Saudi club but that deal seems to have fallen through this past week and we've supposedly stepped in.

If there's any truth in this I'm much more comfortable than I was about Gad, for the simple reasons that there is not a large transfer fee. But looking at the criteria for work permits he's got a much better chance than Gad but I'm not sure if he's going to quite get enough points to hit the threshold based on his country's ranking and only playing in about half of their games. But with his real international break out coming in the last 6 months, impressive ACON and being a goal keeper maybe means there is string grounds to get it through on appeal?
 
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Gabaski appeared to start the ACON as the no2 on the bench but came on as a sub due to injury and kept his place as no1 after that and became a hero for Egypt saving 1 penalty in the quarter final shoot out against Ivory Coast, 2 against Cameroon In the semi final shoot out and 1 in regular time and another in the shoot out with Senegal in the final.

Here's the highlights.

 
So we've gone from trying to sign a 23 year old to a 33 year old?

Sorry, but the whole thing just screams "shambles" to me. Is this simply the case of a chairman playing Football Manager, or are we actually working towards some sort of plan here?
 
C_Latic said:
So we've gone from trying to sign a 23 year old to a 33 year old?

Sorry, but the whole thing just screams "shambles" to me. Is this simply the case of a chairman playing Football Manager, or are we actually working towards some sort of plan here?
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CL, after such a decent post on the "Next Season" thread, why choose to rant about summat you don't even know is true? ... and why assume it's all Talal's doing?

That said, if it is true, 33 for a goalie is still a decent age, and given what KDZ wrote about him, he'd sound a decent buy.

As for a plan - I presume you mean the buy young, nurture and sell one - I'm not sure that works for goalies as it does outfield players.
 
C_Latic said:
So we've gone from trying to sign a 23 year old to a 33 year old?

Sorry, but the whole thing just screams "shambles" to me. Is this simply the case of a chairman playing Football Manager, or are we actually working towards some sort of plan here?
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Maybe you're right, but could it be us trying to tap into an untapped market like we did with Hondorus years ago?

I doubt many outside Africa and the middle east including UK scouts pay that much attention to the some of those leagues, but there are clearly plenty of good players coming out of those countries. So if Talal is familiar with those leagues and players and believes they are good enough then why wouldn't he try and bring some in?

Gabaski became a free agent yesterday and prior to that he was already fixed up with a new club so the opportunity to sign him this summer only just materialised. But he really impressed in the ACON and has been playing for Egypt's top club - so he's got a good CV. Every player is a risk but if he does come and struggles he's on a free, if he does well then we'll be singing Talal's praises.

Zaki was a revelation until he fell out with Bruce after coming in from the same club as Gabaski. We've already in this thread discussed the cost and competition for UK based players is likely to make recruitment tougher, so I don't think it's a bad thing We are trying to be creative and unearth a gem.

None of us know the story behind why we are supposedly looking at these Egytian keepers. But let's see how it plays out rather than assuming it must a big mistake.
 
Well if we are absolutely determined to sign a GK, it means Leam can't be that confident in Ben Amos going forwards at Championship level.

This guy wouldn't be coming to sit on the bench, that's for sure so we'd have to deal with what to do with Amos who I'd imagine wouldn't want to stick around as a number two.
 
C_Latic said:
So we've gone from trying to sign a 23 year old to a 33 year old?

Sorry, but the whole thing just screams "shambles" to me. Is this simply the case of a chairman playing Football Manager, or are we actually working towards some sort of plan here?
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Or it's just media bullshit with no truth. I remember in our first season in the Prem some Nigerian keeper announced he was signing for us despite Jewell having never heard of him.
 
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gazlatic said:
Or it's just media bullshit with no truth. I remember in our first season in the Prem some Nigerian keeper announced he was signing for us despite Jewell having never heard of him.
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It must be bollocks, because the whole thing is just absurd. I simply refuse to believe the chairman would have been stupid enough to waste weeks chasing a young keeper that clearly had no chance of gaining a permit, only to then all of the sudden move on to a keeper ten years older who at one point had an offer from a Saudi club which no doubt would have involved big money.

Thing is, I could've maybe believed it if it were a priority position like winger or striker, but Leam was never not going to give Amos a chance and Jamie Jones has always proven fine as backup.
 
C_Latic said:
It must be bollocks, because the whole thing is just absurd. I simply refuse to believe the chairman would have been stupid enough to waste weeks chasing a young keeper that clearly had no chance of gaining a permit, only to then all of the sudden move on to a keeper ten years older who at one point had an offer from a Saudi club which no doubt would have involved big money.

Thing is, I could've maybe believed it if it were a priority position like winger or striker, but Leam was never not going to give Amos a chance and Jamie Jones has always proven fine as backup.
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Without knowing the credibility of the Arabic sites reporting the info it difficult to verify the reports coming out of Egypt but they have used direct quotes from Gad's club President confirming our interest, so unless they are making it up as they go then we were in for Gad. No direct quotes about Gabaski so that might not be true, but he is arguably a better choice with no fee, a better chance of a permit and proven at international level - so if we are watching the Egyptian league we may have moved for him earlier if he was available. Saudi would've offered big money for sure, but he's currently not got an offer and surely playing in England would be appealing to him - so i doubt we'd be offering as big money as the Saudi deal but it will probably be a better deal than he'd get by staying in Egypt.

Amos will get a chance but last season i think despite being well protected he made a fair few costly mistakes and has had bad spells at this level for other clubs. Jones is fine coming in as a back up, but he's not a first choice Championship keeper. I agree we do need to strengthen other positions too but i it's the right call to be looking for another keeper option.
 
HudWiganFan said:
Well if we are absolutely determined to sign a GK, it means Leam can't be that confident in Ben Amos going forwards at Championship level.

This guy wouldn't be coming to sit on the bench, that's for sure so we'd have to deal with what to do with Amos who I'd imagine wouldn't want to stick around as a number two.
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If the rumour turns out to be true and Gabaski does end up coming in Amos will probably stay as no1 if he does well and our new recruit will have have time to settle in while waiting for a chance.

If Amos struggles Gabaski would probably get thrown in sooner rather than later.
 
king_dezeeuw06 said:
If the rumour turns out to be true and Gabaski does end up coming in Amos will probably stay as no1 if he does well and our new recruit will have have time to settle in while waiting for a chance.

If Amos struggles Gabaski would probably get thrown in sooner rather than later.
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No chance he'll come here as backup in my opinion. He's the Egyptian national team's number one and, from what I've read when looking up Gad before, they're incredibly strict as a nation on who gets to play at international level. If you're not playing regularly at club level, you don't get picked for the team basically.

According to Wikipedia, he's spent the last 10 years working his way into the starting lineup for the national team. Why would he forfeit all that to sit on the bench for a team in the second division thousands of miles away, wasting the prime of his career, when he could go to another Egyptian team or somewhere like Saudi Arabia where he'd probably earn more money, speak the language, play regularly and keep his spot in the national team?
 
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FROM MY FRIEND Mo IN CAIRO I MESSAGED HIM THIS AFTERNOON

Hello Don, actually haven't heard about it, but that would be a good signing, he's a very good goalkeeper. Will let you know if there is any news about it here.
Cheers Mo.
 
HudWiganFan said:
No chance he'll come here as backup in my opinion. He's the Egyptian national team's number one and, from what I've read when looking up Gad before, they're incredibly strict as a nation on who gets to play at international level. If you're not playing regularly at club level, you don't get picked for the team basically.

According to Wikipedia, he's spent the last 10 years working his way into the starting lineup for the national team. Why would he forfeit all that to sit on the bench for a team in the second division thousands of miles away, wasting the prime of his career, when he could go to another Egyptian team or somewhere like Saudi Arabia where he'd probably earn more money, speak the language, play regularly and keep his spot in the national team?
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I don't think we'd sign him to be no2 but it doesn't mean he'd automatically start the first game after starting if Amos has done well. If Amos hasn't then he'll end up in straight away.

Just like Kerr and Tilt, they were signed to be first teamer and did end up first choice eventually but they had to wait for their chance.

He just lost his big money deal in Saudi, the Egyptian league is unlikely to be well paying compared to the Championship. I imagine any player playing in Egypt would fancy coming to England.
 
king_dezeeuw06 said:
I don't think we'd sign him to be no2 but it doesn't mean he'd automatically start the first game after starting if Amos has done well. If Amos hasn't then he'll end up in straight away.

Just like Kerr and Tilt, they were signed to be first teamer and did end up first choice eventually but they had to wait for their chance.

He just lost his big money deal in Saudi, the Egyptian league is unlikely to be well paying compared to the Championship. I imagine any player playing in Egypt would fancy coming to England.
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Kerr and Tilt waited months for a regular spot, and I just can't see someone of this guy's seniority hanging around that long with an international spot on the line tbh.

I don't know anything about the offers he has or hasn't had, but I find it hard to believe a GK with his CV couldn't land a move somewhere in the middle east (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar etc.) that wouldn't pay more than a low-end Championship wage.

The only thing the Championship has going for is being a higher level with more worldwide exposure, but that would only be worth uprooting your life for as a free-agent in your 30s if you were guaranteed regular playing time in my opinion. Or it would if I were him anyway, but I could be wrong and I guess we'll see if anything ever actually comes of these Egyptian tales!
 
Blackpool about to sign Oxford's Cameron Brannagan for a fee of over a million - a player we tried to sign many times under Caldwell when he was at Liverpool.

An excellent player in League One last season and another 'relegation rival' making an eye-catching acquisition...
 
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