Transfer deadline day | Page 5 | Vital Football

Transfer deadline day

That's brave, considering Jordan's out of contract in the summer. Getting him on a new deal would be better news than any signing from outside!

Not as brave as offering an prolonged deal to a player that has so far spent so much time on the treatment table.

For that reason, I suspect the other teams were offering us peanuts and him a short term deal.

It is all about balance.
 
As a fan disappointed we didn't sign that magic striker who wins crucial points and a run to the play offs. In the cold light of day that would have been a very long shot and a potentially ruinous risk. There were a large number of free agents last week and their number has grown since.
 
Think we can safely say that was underwhelming. Another midfielder, one who's made just 4 starts in a 4 month loan spell at a team struggling in League 2. Not sure he fits the SE mantra of anyone coming in has to go into our starting XI and make us stronger.

Hope there is a couple of decent free agents out there as we're going to be leaving ourselves sort on numbers let alone quality if we get a couple of long term injuries.
 
This from EFL Hub on Twitter - "Gillingham have rejected bids from Charlton Athletic, Lincoln City, Ipswich Town & AFC Bournemouth for winger Jordan Graham."

That's brave, considering Jordan's out of contract in the summer. Getting him on a new deal would be better news than any signing from outside!

I wonder if our failure to offload Akinde is why we haven't got a striker in...

Firstly, a random tweet doesn’t make it true. Also, even if there were bids from those teams, we don’t know what the bids were. Given his contract is up at the end of the season and he has a bad injury record, I suspect any bids may have been derisory. Given it seems we had no quality like for like replacement lined up for Jordan, probably our best player, I’d say it would have been brave to accept a bid for him rather than turn them down - especially to League One rivals.

Regardless, I’m glad he’s staying - ditto Dempsey, Tucker and Ogilvie who we couldn’t afford to lose. I would have liked an additional CB as cover and forward to challenge Oliver and Big John, but overall am happy that we’ve kept our best players, moved on a number of loanees who weren’t adding much and brought in some better ones. We could still pick up some players who have been released and are free agents. Overall, decent business.
 
Danny Graham has left Sunderland in search of regular football.I know he is not quite what would have been top of the shopping list.But he knows how to get on the end of crosses and could be a useful short term signing.

Presumably he’s now a free agent and if we fancied him, we could pick him or someone similar up now.
 
Where is the evidence that Akinde is on massive wages?

The last player we paid big money to was JET, but that was because a lot of teams were interested, he had made a spectacular start and we were loaning him from a higher division.

Why would we have offered megabucks to Akinde who had played 90% of his career in either League Two or non-league and was warming Lincoln's bench? A small transfer fee perhaps, but we are never going to get that back.

The fact that even penniless Southend thought they had a sniff would actually suggest the opposite.

Even those that dislike Scally would say he is careful with money and after being burned in the JET deal, I can not see him having thrown a massive deal at Akinde who was being offered a chance to come back south, where he has played most of his career.
Whether you believe he’s on high wages or not you have to remember we signed him for a six-figure sum.
 
That’s definitely got to be it. We had 5? loanees leave. Brought in Lee (on loan, remember, so presumably a portion of wages), Johnson, Slattery and Cundle. Mellis leaving permanently would’ve freed up more. There was evidently space in the budget to be able to sign a wide player and striker as Evans was hoping. I’m hoping that wasn’t assuming Akinde would be off.

Getting rid of that waster up top and his astronomical wages (or part of them) would’ve been great.
Too late to matter now but Johnson's loan deal was made permanaent.
 
Whether you believe he’s on high wages or not you have to remember we signed him for a six-figure sum.

That would be more of a reason to persevere with him, I would think, unless Southend were offering decent cash.

The truth is that, on his day, Evans believes Akinde can be unplayable at this level. He said so after the Rochdale away game and Danny Cowley said similar when he was a guest on the Quest highlights programme. Problem is that Akinde is not in that sort of form in many games. Hence, why Oliver's consistency makes him first choice.

His late interventions have just gained us points against Rochdale (home) and Sunderland, as well as turning one point into three in our daylight robbery at Crewe and scoring two at Rochdale. Not bad considering how often he is on the bench.
 
I still think that SE has his eye out for an out of contract striker.
However, the system that we play and Oliver being dominant, whoever comes in would be a bench warmer.
 
Disappointed that we didn`t land a striker but, maybe, in acquiring another midfielder who might actually get games (Mellis probably wasn`t going to figure too much) it helps our options when we play the high pressing game that SE seems to favour and many of us like (because it works).

We don`t seem to have had the luxury of making the most of available substitutions in recent games, even though the high press we play is particularly energy sapping. Having another midfielder/s on the bench that could come into the play and not dilute our press would be a good thing.

We could still do with another striker though !
 
Former Gillingham loan forward Mikael Ndjoli has been released by Bournemouth and has signed for Barrow! Surely he was someone who could have done a job until the end of the season? The deal was in place to beat the deadline!
 
Former Gillingham loan forward Mikael Ndjoli has been released by Bournemouth and has signed for Barrow! Surely he was someone who could have done a job until the end of the season? The deal was in place to beat the deadline!

I think he scored twice in one game for us, but otherwise anonymous so I would think he was no better or consistent than Akinde or any of the youngsters we had on loan earlier this season.

Could perhaps have been the bench warmer that Shotshy refers to, but I could not see him leading the line in the way Oliver does.
 
I think he scored twice in one game for us, but otherwise anonymous so I would think he was no better or consistent than Akinde or any of the youngsters we had on loan earlier this season.

Could perhaps have been the bench warmer that Shotshy refers to, but I could not see him leading the line in the way Oliver does.
Didn't he miss 2 penalties in the same game? Or something like that anyway
 
According to Evans there was interest in five of our squad; Mellis, Akinde, Graham....guessing Tucker and Dempsey were the others two. Good work holding onto the latter three.

Or Bonham and Ogilvie as they are out of contract at the end of the season and someone might have tried their luck getting them on the cheap.
 
I suspect we were in for one or two striking options but lost out. Perhaps Griggs or Lee from Luton.
 
Whether you believe he’s on high wages or not you have to remember we signed him for a six-figure sum.
I hope you're joking Trev or was it 6 figures including the two after the decimal point. I hope to God that it was because if we did pay in excess of 100k for that loser then that's it - I'm giving up trying to rationalise what those in the upper echelon of the club are actually trying to achieve. There again, maybe I should have done it a while back meaning it's me who's the dunce for thinking that deals are done in the best interest of the club by people who actually give a frak.
 
I hope you're joking Trev or was it 6 figures including the two after the decimal point. I hope to God that it was because if we did pay in excess of 100k for that loser then that's it - I'm giving up trying to rationalise what those in the upper echelon of the club are actually trying to achieve. There again, maybe I should have done it a while back meaning it's me who's the dunce for thinking that deals are done in the best interest of the club by people who actually give a frak.
I think we did pay a decent fee for him, thinking that he was going to lead the line.
In my opinion, his work rate falls short of what is needed.
 
Where is the evidence that Akinde is on massive wages?

The last player we paid big money to was JET, but that was because a lot of teams were interested, he had made a spectacular start and we were loaning him from a higher division.

Why would we have offered megabucks to Akinde who had played 90% of his career in either League Two or non-league and was warming Lincoln's bench? A small transfer fee perhaps, but we are never going to get that back.

The fact that even penniless Southend thought they had a sniff would actually suggest the opposite.

Even those that dislike Scally would say he is careful with money and after being burned in the JET deal, I can not see him having thrown a massive deal at Akinde who was being offered a chance to come back south, where he has played most of his career.
When Akinde signed for us, he came from Lincoln, who are funded pretty well, as they have regular 10k attendances. I know a Lincoln fan said he was on good money and they needed to offload him as it wasn't value for money.

Likewise, when we signed him, if you remember Steve Evans actually said that Scally had actually approved breaking our wage structure to sign him. SE said he actually turned this down, as he didn't want Scally to break the wage structure for him, but then a deal was done a couple of weeks later. So i'd imagine the end deal probably came down a little bit to meet in the middle, but still ended up right at the very top end of our wage structure. I think it would be fair to say he's probably at least one of our 2/3 top earners.