Those four words are the bane of my life as we head towards the end of the first season. Darlington are putting up a brave fight against the odds to secure automatic promotion to Division 2, whilst Manchester United are having a season to remember.
The big club release clause is basically a clause players insist on putting in their contract when signing for your tiny club, which means that if a larger club wants them, you have no choice but to sell them. Graeme Tomlinson did this to me in update 1, and now everybody is at it.
First to go is centre half Andrew Duncan
It’s irritating but £700k is actually decent money for a Division 3 club. My usual move is to look on the free transfer list at who my scout recommends, so some kid called Jonathon Atkinson is in
…and out. Motherwell can’t need all these Division 3 Centre halves surely? What a mighty irritance. He played two games for me!
A more positive side of being in the lower leagues is if you win an FA Cup match you feel like a King. Imagine how good you’d feel if 36 year old Mick Quinn knocked out Division 2 Luton for you
The reward? Well it’s only Mick’s former club Newcastle United coming to Feethams!
Well that’s a tie to capture the public’s imagination. Unfortunately, Alan Shearer shows no mercy
It is however one of Shearer’s last acts as a Newcastle player
Good job Newcastle recalled Paul Brayson off me really. Out of spite, they’ve also recalled Aaron Hughes. Robbie Keane has arrived on loan, but he’s 16 and terrible – but he does a cracking forward roll.
All of that leaves Darlo fighting in and around the top 3, somehow. Not long to go!
8 games to go then, and I’m not settling for anything other than being promoted.
Away from the crazy world of Division 3, some impotant manager changes
George Graham swapping Leeds for Sheff Wed is a bit odd. Readers of the previous blog will be delighted to see Brian Little back in charge at Villa. This game never fails to surprise me, there’s always something weird.
Further to that, look what the FA Cup semi Final has thrown up
Coventry vs Tottenham! I know…but also a Manchester derby. Amazing. Meanwhile Man Utd are still going strong…everywhere
Not only domestically, but also in Europe
Parma, with the people’s champion squad, will be a tough battle
Real Madrid have splashed the cash on Alfonso
But Barca went for del Piero to get over it
Whilst these legends of the game were also on the move
Huge names, huge moves. Your community XI Keeper made the move to Parma, too
And finally, Glenn Hoddle survived the World Cup playoffs
The draw thows up a famous battle…and two economic superpowers. POLITICAL BANTZ
Anyway, as ever we’ll finish with the Premier League table. Honestly, I have never seen anything like this
One draw, 27 wins. 0 losses. Only 9 conceded. That is insane. Arsenal & Chelsea a distant battle for second. Meanwhile, at the bottom…
Nobody cut adrift yet, I suppose West Ham are the most surprising of the strugglers.
So join us next time for the finale to the 97/98 season, where hopefully I’ll clinch promotion and nobody steals any of my remaining players…
Do you allow me to share a small portion of information about transfers?
(and sorry in advance for my bad English)
I’m not sure if you had realize but there´s a game rule which is good to acknowledge: if a bid for player is rejected (your player/others club bid or others club player/your bid, no matter who is selling or buying) that value (and any other value bellow that) will always be rejected till the end of the season (objectively speaking, till new update). So… when you´re lack of money be careful biding a lower value for a player (it could be a bit annoying in some cases. e.g.: when you´re a trying to hire a player from a better clube that is available to join your team because he is not playing and because of that his value is decreasing if you make a bid of 500k when his value was 525k, if your bid is rejected you – or any other club – will have to buy him, during that specific season, for a value above 500k (even it he’s getting every day more cheap and his value is now 400k or 300k)
Another important rule (which is obviously easy to be aware but maybe no that easy to understand the consequences): the bid for a player is the 1st step in a negotiation so… you can actually make some less fair play game in business: if David is playing Darlington, he gets promoted to DIV 2 and for some insane technical reason Richard Wright is relegated to Ipswich’s bench (DIV 1) he might have some chances hiring this great GK. But still the players is not keen in a move and there are clubs disputing him but he is in David’s shortlist and David receives a notification every time Ipswich receives a proposition for him. What can David do? He can always offer a totally bigger value (it doesn’t matter if we actually have that value available, that’s not a condition to offer and it absolutely makes sense because as we can be expecting any kind of revenues to arrive meanwhile) and then David will be alone in the race and he will figure out if the player is available for a move to his club. And don´t worry… your board will not allow you to hire a player of 1500k for 5000k but be careful… if there is money available your board will let you offer 35k of wages even if the player is just asking 2k (that´s another way, this one much more desperate, to avoid other clubs signing in our desired players). When we realize he is finally available to play at our club we should try to attempt to negotiate alone as, even if he’s available to negotiate with us, he will be always – against, in theory, some times players opt for lower clubs and they don´t even offer Saudi Arabia financial conditions – more happy to join Norwich, Wimbledon or any other bigger club than, for instance, Darlington
In what confers to big club release clauses they could be good when you´re the bigger club. I have bought players for 500k and then sell the guys for 2000k to a smaller club with which the players demands that clause again I end up buying him again for something like 600k or 700k and then I easily sell him again for, imagine, 1500k (and yes…everything in one season, that´s a easy way of making money).
When you´re the smaller club there are always risks. This might sound crazy but the first thing I do when I start a season (and every time I buy player) is placing every players in transfer lis at the minimum fee, 5k. This action really helps capping other clubs attention and selling players and when I have two or three clubs interested in the player I place his regular value again in the market (sometimes you have big expectations about a player and things don´t work, doing this you will always be more prepared to face a unexpected situation and sell the guy afterwards.) Obviously I just to that with players with big club release clauses when I realize they are not completely unavailable for other clubs. Meaning, even if you don´t place them as “available” there´s a moment bigger clubs can bid for them and there´s nothing you can do so – remember the first paragraph of this comment? – if a club (that is not a “bigger club”) makes a bid and you reject that offer other clubs (no matter how big they are) will always offer more (at least that’s a way of avoiding selling a player in “sales season”). Still… if a player you have is now valued at 1000k and a bigger club makes a proposition of… imagine… 900k you can: 1) accept and pray your player don´t accept the terms of the contract that your opponent offers him or just enjoy the 900k 2) reject and change is value to the maximum amount the market allows you (imagine, 1900k); the tribunal – in my opinion, other things I shared before on this post are facts, this one is only a hint based on my experience – will be more keen to set up a higher value although I think the value is also related with the length of the contract you have with the player)