James Vardy Fleetwood

Blackpool have a bid of £750k turned down for Fleetwood striker James Vardy, Celtic apparently ready to bid £1 million. This guy is 25 and has only ever played in the BSP. We accept £250k each for Bradley Wright Phillips, aged 26 and consistent goalscorer in League 1 and Championship, and Joe Mason, aged 20, again scoring for us and Cardiff in the Championship.

Makes me bloody puke the people who praised Ridsdale for ALL his efforts "saving" our club. Wanker

I agree about the wanker but when we were selling they had us over a barrel unless we could have created a bidding war.

The thing is, did it even help us selling them so quickly? At least Jamie Hart earned a few bob for finding buyers. Hardly rocket science though was it? Anyone wanna buy a proven goalscorer or a very young promising goalscorer for buttons? Yeah, that will be a wedge of cash you can't spare ridders me old mucker.

Buyers and sellers markets, they're a bitch innum ?

I love watching Mason doing ok in the Championship, not so keen on BWP of course but then I have to watch Jamie Mackie doing a proper job in the Prem, £145k ? Apparently Perriwinkle is a top top negotiator. There is consolation in that you boys got fook all for him at a time when you really needed it, every cloud and all that.

greenjock wrote:

Blackpool have a bid of £750k turned down for Fleetwood striker James Vardy, Celtic apparently ready to bid £1 million. This guy is 25 and has only ever played in the BSP. We accept £250k each for Bradley Wright Phillips, aged 26 and consistent goalscorer in League 1 and Championship, and Joe Mason, aged 20, again scoring for us and Cardiff in the Championship.

Makes me bloody puke the people who praised Ridsdale for ALL his efforts "saving" our club. Wanker

£250k for BWP? If only.

Andy_Symons wrote:

greenjock wrote:

Blackpool have a bid of £750k turned down for Fleetwood striker James Vardy, Celtic apparently ready to bid £1 million. This guy is 25 and has only ever played in the BSP. We accept £250k each for Bradley Wright Phillips, aged 26 and consistent goalscorer in League 1 and Championship, and Joe Mason, aged 20, again scoring for us and Cardiff in the Championship.

Makes me bloody puke the people who praised Ridsdale for ALL his efforts "saving" our club. Wanker

£250k for BWP? If only.

Was it even less? Incredible business by the saviour that is Ridsdale, and some deluded idiots are pleased he's apparently still assisting us in the transfer market! He's probably charged a fortune for "advising" Brent to sign Purse, Chadwick and Blanchard on longer deals than they were here on before.

I think BWP was closer to the £150k mark. Bolasie also went for about 20-30k, Mason, I think, was around £150 - 200k (the figures were released in one of the P&A reports).

A continuing tale of shite!

BWP went for £125k I've been told, joke

Has anyone on here seen the books at the time of Administration and what money we desperately needed or didn't need at the time just to keep afloat? As far as I understand it we needed cash in a hurry to stave off the Taxman. Now for all I know that might just be a bare faced lie but it equally could have been very true. The prices we got for the various players was presumably what we were offered and to me says more about other clubs picking over the carcus of something they presumed to be easy pickings. Did we have a choice? Well unless you know the exact finacial position of PAFC at that time it is just an academic question isn't it. Instead of blaming Ridsdale, and no I don't like the man much, how about laying the blame and the prices we got at the door of the old board who put us in that position in the first place.

Sensiblegreeny wrote:

Did we have a choice? Well unless you know the exact finacial position of PAFC at that time it is just an academic question isn't it.

Yes, of course it was the fault of the previous owners, that's obvious, but let's not forget Ridsdale was employed by them to sort out the mess to the best of their favour. Cheers Pete. All the panic was pure theatre for us onlookers, especially the money from Japan episode.
As to blaming the M7 for any future ills under Brent, I won't be. I will be blaming Brent if he has allowed any of their debt and mayhem to affect the current running of the club... he had no need to, he was the only game in town.

Apart from that, I still blame the Romans for Exeter.

I know we needed the cash, but what we got was an absolute insult. I still think Ridsdale sold them when it didn't really make any difference to us. I know every club in the land knew our plight and had every opportunity to take advantage but surely there's a limit? Mason had obvious potential and BWP was scoring goals for fun in a team that was sinking like a stone. Funny he doesn't seem to have too many problems with his knee now as well. Charlton really really took the piss, but I suppose good luck to them.

I still think Mason will turn out to be something pretty good, so I really hope we have add ons to come.

Chemical Ali wrote:

I think BWP was closer to the £150k mark. Bolasie also went for about 20-30k, Mason, I think, was around £150 - 200k (the figures were released in one of the P&A reports).

Anybody got a link to that report?

How much did we get for them? And Jack Stephens and Reda Johnson.

Any others?

Here it is:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Only really shows Jack Stephens sold for £150k with 10% add on, Mason sold for £150k with no add-on mentioned, and a whopping £20k for Bolasie. The BWP sale was before all this happened so no details. Unbelievable that there are no add-ons to come from the Mason sale.

Tringreen wrote:

I agree about the wanker but when we were selling they had us over a barrel unless we could have created a bidding war.

Agreed, simple economics. You can only push up the price for something if you've got more than one buyer. In addition what has not been mentioned here is that Argyle were in breach of the players contracts and that at any stage they could have walked for nothing, as in the recent case with Hearts. We simply did not have the money to keep on paying the wages.

I have no proof that the Ridsdale firesale was or was not the genius act that it is proclaimed to be. The theory of course is that it took the amount owed to HRMC below the threshold at which they could insist on liquidation. If so it was simply a necessity.

The only people to blame are the people who agreed the financial spend knowing full well that they didn't have the necessary backing. You simply cannot commit to 4 year contracts with no plan of action for relegation.

Bodmin Tew wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

I agree about the wanker but when we were selling they had us over a barrel unless we could have created a bidding war.

Agreed, simple economics. You can only push up the price for something if you've got more than one buyer. In addition what has not been mentioned here is that Argyle were in breach of the players contracts and that at any stage they could have walked for nothing, as in the recent case with Hearts. We simply did not have the money to keep on paying the wages.

I have no proof that the Ridsdale firesale was or was not the genius act that it is proclaimed to be. The theory of course is that it took the amount owed to HRMC below the threshold at which they could insist on liquidation. If so it was simply a necessity.

The only people to blame are the people who agreed the financial spend knowing full well that they didn't have the necessary backing. You simply cannot commit to 4 year contracts with no plan of action for relegation.

True. Our dire straits finances meant that we had zero bargaining power too when it came to trying to screw a decent % in sell-on clauses.

Other clubs were f**king us in the arse, and we just had to stand there and take it.

Czarcasm wrote:

Bodmin Tew wrote:

Tringreen wrote:

I agree about the wanker but when we were selling they had us over a barrel unless we could have created a bidding war.

Agreed, simple economics. You can only push up the price for something if you've got more than one buyer. In addition what has not been mentioned here is that Argyle were in breach of the players contracts and that at any stage they could have walked for nothing, as in the recent case with Hearts. We simply did not have the money to keep on paying the wages.

I have no proof that the Ridsdale firesale was or was not the genius act that it is proclaimed to be. The theory of course is that it took the amount owed to HRMC below the threshold at which they could insist on liquidation. If so it was simply a necessity.

The only people to blame are the people who agreed the financial spend knowing full well that they didn't have the necessary backing. You simply cannot commit to 4 year contracts with no plan of action for relegation.

True. Our dire straits finances meant that we had zero bargaining power too when it came to trying to screw a decent % in sell-on clauses.

Other clubs were f**king us in the arse, and we just had to stand there and take it.

I think those were the words I was looking for -

Czarcasm raises an interesting point about 'sell-on' clauses.

Do any of the players we sold in the 'firesale' have any sell-on clauses at all?

Don't forget Craig Noone as well. Sold for £100K if my memory serves me. More than earned that back for Brighton by helping them into the Championship.

Any sell-on clause there?

While I accept, we were not in a position of strength in negotiating the fee, wouldn't a well-connected, well-respected operator in footballing circles have been able to negotiate sell-on clauses?

Edited to add: just seen above post about Mason: no sell-on????? And he sold him to Cardiff? Did he have no 'connection' or 'sway' there at all?

Interesting....

Well I still maintain that after it became obvious we were seriously in the shit, and we had made the initial lump sum payment to HMRC, we were going to court anyway and instead of selling Mason so cheaply straight away, we had a few weeks to hawk him around and could easily have got more for him, and a decent add on package. Just my opinion, but it makes me sick to see how much other clubs are able to demand and often get for their players. Remember Mason was around 18 and had scored inthe Championship for a club getting whipped most weeks, and again in League 1, where he was a first team regular.

He wasn't sold until July and had scored 10 goals in 31 starts, noy bad for a 19 year old. A better deal could and should have been made, especially with all of Ridsdale's contacts, we're apparently missing so much, and Jamie "Super negotiator" Hart on the case. Makes me wonder if he wasn't sold to Cardiff on the cheap as a favour by Ridsdale, or part payback for "errors" made in his time in charge there.

I don't think there was a sell on or add on clause with Mason, as it wasn't mentioned in the Guilfoyle report, whereas the Jack Stephens sale does mention one. I think there was a clause in the Noone sale, as we received a payment from Brighton when they got promoted. Interesting that Brighton turned down a bid of £ 400k from Cardiff for Noone this week, so there could be another sell on fee in the pipeline hopefully.

So it seems that people are more ready to accept the sale was more neccessity than desire on our part then if I'm reading the responses correctly now. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and pillory everything done when not privy to the inside story. We can be conspiracy theorist regarding Ridsdale as much as we like but the fact is we were in deep shit and about to go down without a fight. The other fact is that without a position to bargain given the expedience of need to raise cash other clubs DID take advantage of it. We would probably have done the same and nobody is going to hand over more cash of their own if they don't have to just to do somebody a favour are they. Take the take over of Argyle as an example of that. The creditors had no bargaining power either. Brent became the only game in town and he offered them a pittance for wipping off their debts. He could have been nice and offered more but knew he didn't have to because it was either his offer or absolutely nothing at all. No bargaining power therefore the price was as small as it could be. It is absolutely the same principal if for different things being purchased.

The blame for the sales are those of the previous board. However, what happens now is down to the new owner and unlike in politics, you cannot blame the previous lot for any woes that arise now. The deal was made and he has taken over the club in it's current form and it will live or die by Brent's decisions and dealings not anyone else's. If it goes tits up then it is down to him once he had signed the documents.