Joost Van Aken

[pazowl55]

56 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

Because Jeffers cost a ton of money that we simply didn't have at that time, fully vindicated all of those opposed to the signing on the basis that he was always injured and on his rare appearances was a waste of space. His negative impact it seems to me was far greater.

 

With Rhodes, at least we could nominally afford him (although it is a sizeable chunk of the current financial problems), he has not been injured as far as I can remember and we have usually had enough alternatives to not have to rely on him. And although he has been generally a failure, his scoring record is still considerably better than that of Jeffers.

Jeffers was the better player mind and we were getting him towards the end of him being good. Suppose same can be said about Rhodes aswell.

 

The disappointment with Rhodes comes because he was meant to be the missing piece of the jigsaw and he was far from it.

 

There isnt much between them for me in terms of our worst overall signing all things considered. Advantage Rhodes has though is he can still change that.

[Owls-Fan]

13 hours ago, airborne_rat_of_s6 said:

Is he any worse than Pelupessy?

In a word, no he’s not.  
 

I do wonder if he’d be better playing in left back or left wing back considering his passing and crossing ability. But you’d think the managers he’s played under would know if that’s the case.

 

Knowing us he will sign for some midtable Dutch side on a free transfer and become Europe’s most sort after wing back. 

[handworth52]

11 hours ago, Nero said:

Thing is Abdi and Rhodes had been decent players. JVA never has was or will be.

I was stool next to him just before he was supposed to be having a major op on his ankle maybe 18 months ago ,I was amazed how slight he was and I think physically he isn't upto it , he has talent I believe but that's not everything. 

[matthefish2002]

I doubt anyone will take him off our hands in normal circumstances but in current situation next to impossible.

While he is still under contract he has an opportunity to stake his claim but I am not holding my breath.

Was woeful v Sheffield United that time.

[Kanye West]

Got chucked in the deep end against united.

 

Wouldn't write him off, he had some decent games for us. 

[Guest LondonOwl313]

10 hours ago, DJMortimer said:

 

Because Jeffers cost a ton of money that we simply didn't have at that time, fully vindicated all of those opposed to the signing on the basis that he was always injured and on his rare appearances was a waste of space. His negative impact it seems to me was far greater.

 

With Rhodes, at least we could nominally afford him (although it is a sizeable chunk of the current financial problems), he has not been injured as far as I can remember and we have usually had enough alternatives to not have to rely on him. And although he has been generally a failure, his scoring record is still considerably better than that of Jeffers.

Jeffers cost £700k if I remember rightly, we signed him after selling Brunt for £3m. Financially Rhodes has been a far more expensive mistake 

[DJMortimer]

11 minutes ago, LondonOwl313 said:

Jeffers cost £700k if I remember rightly, we signed him after selling Brunt for £3m. Financially Rhodes has been a far more expensive mistake 

 

...and the club was about £26m in debt at the time.

[Guest LondonOwl313]

28 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

...and the club was about £26m in debt at the time.

I can’t see why that’s relevant because we’re running up even more debt now, albeit to the owner rather than the bank. Going from £26m of debt to £26.7m of debt makes hardly any difference. Spending £8m on Rhodes to breach FFP and cripple all future spending plans has much more of a negative impact

[matthefish2002]

Not a fag paper between who was a worse signing between Jeffers and Rhodes taking everything into account.
 

[DJMortimer]

1 hour ago, LondonOwl313 said:

I can’t see why that’s relevant because we’re running up even more debt now, albeit to the owner rather than the bank. Going from £26m of debt to £26.7m of debt makes hardly any difference. Spending £8m on Rhodes to breach FFP and cripple all future spending plans has much more of a negative impact

 

The winding up petitions and appearances in the High Courts didn't persuade you of the difference?

 

Our finances might be in a mess at the moment and there are of course risks that come with that, but by all accounts we have the financial backing to cope with any eventuality. And the Rhodes deal is not a back-breaker when it comes to league regulations as we were WAY outside those without the stadium sale regardless. There's a difference between not being able to spend money that you have and not having it to begin with.

 

[Guest LondonOwl313]

19 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

The winding up petitions and appearances in the High Courts didn't persuade you of the difference?

 

Our finances might be in a mess at the moment and there are of course risks that come with that, but by all accounts we have the financial backing to cope with any eventuality. And the Rhodes deal is not a back-breaker when it comes to league regulations as we were WAY outside those without the stadium sale regardless. There's a difference between not being able to spend money that you have and not having it to begin with.

 

If we were going to be wound up, it would have happened with £26m or £27m of debt, the absolute amount doesn't make much difference when we're talking a 3% difference. By your argument you're suggesting if we hadn't signed Jeffers then we wouldn't have been wound up which is obviously wrong.

 

Rhodes has cost £8m in fees and £40k a week in wages for 4 and a half years, assuming we're stuck with him until next summer. That's £17m in total. It's not even in the same ballpark in terms of the size of the financial mistake. You're allowed to lose £39m over 3 years, we lost £57m excluding the stadium sale. The Rhodes transfer is a significant chunk of the excess losses. 

 

Everyone criticises Chansiri for not selling players, but maybe the truth of that is if we were to sell we wouldn't have been able to spend anyway because we were so far outside the allowed loss limit. If we were marginally outside, which we would have been without Rhodes, then it would have been easier to wheel and deal to improve the squad.

[DJMortimer]

2 minutes ago, LondonOwl313 said:

If we were going to be wound up, it would have happened with £26m or £27m of debt, the absolute amount doesn't make much difference when we're talking a 3% difference. By your argument you're suggesting if we hadn't signed Jeffers then we wouldn't have been wound up which is obviously wrong.

 

The winding up orders from HMRC were for arrears of somewhere in the region of £1m. We had to scrounge from the Co-operative Bank and Milan Mandaric to even survive the episode intact.

 

Your figures regarding the outlay on Rhodes are speculative and also fail to reflect his season at Norwich during which they presumably paid most, if not all, of his salary. Clearly it was reckless and foolish in terms of the league's regulations, but it will not remotely threaten our existence. And until recently, we had the playing resources to more than compensate for his being useless in a way that was not possible when Jeffers took up residence in the medical room.

[gurujuan]

We need another left sided central defender, so give him another go It’s one less recruitment problem

[Guest LondonOwl313]

4 minutes ago, DJMortimer said:

 

The winding up orders from HMRC were for arrears of somewhere in the region of £1m. We had to scrounge from the Co-operative Bank and Milan Mandaric to even survive the episode intact.

 

Your figures regarding the outlay on Rhodes are speculative and also fail to reflect his season at Norwich during which they presumably paid most, if not all, of his salary. Clearly it was reckless and foolish in terms of the league's regulations, but it will not remotely threaten our existence. And until recently, we had the playing resources to more than compensate for his being useless in a way that was not possible when Jeffers took up residence in the medical room.

Jeffers was signed in August 2007 and the winding up petition wasn’t until December 2010. So 3 and a half years later.. not exactly suggesting that the signing tipped us over the edge. That was the loss of revenue from relegation.

 

Fair point re the Norwich loan, that probably knocks £4m off the overall amount. But the point still stands with it being a £13m outlay. Re the speculation on the cost, I have a hard time seeing how the fee would be less than that.. if anything it would be more including add ons which we probably haven’t triggered. The wages also can’t be far off given it was widely reported at the time 

[Nut]

21 hours ago, Musn't Grumble said:

At one stage, I would have put Thorniley ahead of Van Aken.

 

I know we lost 3-0 at Chelsea in the FA Cup match ("VAR Strikes Again!") but Thorniley looked pretty solid against World class opposition and he had Higuain in his pocket for the 80-odd minutes the latter was on the field. Thorniley looked decent in most of the matches so, like Van Aken's move to Osnabruck, you can't blame the lad for taking up the offer of first team football at Blackpool.

 

 

Thorniley was/is a much better player. Solid and committed. Can't remember him ever letting us down. 

[DJMortimer]

2 minutes ago, LondonOwl313 said:

Jeffers was signed in August 2007 and the winding up petition wasn’t until December 2010. So 3 and a half years later.. not exactly suggesting that the signing tipped us over the edge. That was the loss of revenue from relegation.

 

The point still stands that it was a monumentally stupid outlay given the years we had spent circling the plughole and that the player himself was not only a gamble in terms of his abilities, but everyone was well aware of the catalogue of injuries he's been suffering.

 

4 minutes ago, LondonOwl313 said:

Re the speculation on the cost, I have a hard time seeing how the fee would be less than that.. if anything it would be more including add ons which we probably haven’t triggered. The wages also can’t be far off given it was widely reported at the time 

 

Usually the reported fees are the maximum extent of the cost in terms of conditional clauses (like we did when Lucas Joao was sold). As for the salary being widely reported, that is extremely dodgy ground. The real topic of this thread (before this tangent) is a case in point. A figure of four million Euro has been used repeatedly, but simple logic (plus the occasional rumour) tells me that it can't have been anywhere near that. Even the fee for Rhodes has been speculated at anywhere between £6m and £10m; quite a range. It's possible that it could perhaps have been at the lower end of that scale with the remainder coming if we were promoted or something like that. Whatever, we can both agree it has been a disaster; and a completely unnecessary one.

 

[gurujuan]

11 minutes ago, Nut said:

Thorniley was/is a much better player. Solid and committed. Can't remember him ever letting us down. 

I liked Thorniley as well, although his lack of height when paired with Lees, was an issue Pretty certain Van Aken would do a good job as one of our centre backs

[Brommers]

On 14/05/2020 at 09:35, lanzaroteowl said:

 

Pretty sure the £4M tag was from the local media.

Must be true then.

[billyblack]

On 15/05/2020 at 01:26, pazowl55 said:

Jeffers was the better player mind and we were getting him towards the end of him being good. Suppose same can be said about Rhodes aswell.

 

The disappointment with Rhodes comes because he was meant to be the missing piece of the jigsaw and he was far from it.

 

There isnt much between them for me in terms of our worst overall signing all things considered. Advantage Rhodes has though is he can still change that.

Rhodes may have been a missing piece, we still missed the 4 corners and some of the edge bits.

[Mister Soul]

On 14/05/2020 at 09:01, GHS said:

He started epic, remember the Cardiff away game, some of the cross field passes were sublime.

 

The loss at home to that lot is what broke him.

 

I'd like to think there is a player in there and someone like Borner could help him bring it out as he can relate to him now having both played in Germany and he can explain the comparisons and differences.

 

I'd like to think this isn't the end for the lad.

Im certain there is. Unfortunately he is perceived to be 'a waste of money' based on the circumstances that evened pretty quickly in his career. 

He will come good for us or sadly another club