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Russell Martin has Ross Stewart as his main target **Transfer confirmed **

MrChalk said:
A commonsense post.

We really don't have any idea of whats happening behind the scenes at SAFC and I suspect that this unsigned deal is way more complex.

Stewart and his agent will be pushing for security on the back of multiple long term injuries. From the agents perspective, they'll want his financial future secured and will be just as aware as the club that his likeliness to recovery back to the same level is a risk factor.

The club, I'm guessing, will have factored this into his offer. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a short term contract extension with with a slight pay rise and some kind of severance/lay off clause built in should his injuries reoccur.

The agent won't want this and would happily take a contract elsewhere if it was a 3/4 year contract without injury caveats. It's a cynical game driven by money after all and really isn't about playing football.

He could go to Southampton, do his achillies again and sit on a higher paid, 3 year contract and play 50 games in 3 seasons. His agent wouldn't give a shit. It's a transaction that looks after his clients financial security.

The club are trying to take the emotion out of this and learn from past errors. I get that.

This is all speculation BTW. I know nowt.
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far too much common sense there mate.....reported
 

North of the Smoke said:
A top striker in this league, a nuisance in the premier league. He won't be a big hitter in the big league imo.

We need him to get up there and find out. If he's off we need a replacement to get out of this league, we wont do it with what we have or makeshift forwards.
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It’s time to accept that the club won’t be making any sort of financial commitment to ‘going for it’ to try and get back up in the same timescale of Ross Stewart’s career.

So to that end we might as well sell our best players and operate on a wage bill of a club that is prepared to float about in the middle of the championship.
 
Born Safc said:
We would all have loved Stewart to have signed a new contract months ago but the reality is he hasn't...If we now take the Safc sentiment out of everything we have a Club supposedly willing to pay up to 10 million for a player who hasn't kicked a ball since January and one year left on his contract ...If by Saturday Ross Stewart is still at Sunderland with no new contract signed we'll have to go through all this again in January that's assuming he's playing regular and Clubs won't be offering anything like 10 million...I'd love him to sign up again but if not let's just take the money cos this seems to have been dragging on forever....
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I find it amazing, that a club maybe willing to pay 10 million for a fella in is last year of his contract and hasn’t kicked a ball for 9 months and played around 10 games in the championship.
MrChalk said:
A commonsense post.

We really don't have any idea of whats happening behind the scenes at SAFC and I suspect that this unsigned deal is way more complex.

Stewart and his agent will be pushing for security on the back of multiple long term injuries. From the agents perspective, they'll want his financial future secured and will be just as aware as the club that his likeliness to recovery back to the same level is a risk factor.

The club, I'm guessing, will have factored this into his offer. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a short term contract extension with with a slight pay rise and some kind of severance/lay off clause built in should his injuries reoccur.

The agent won't want this and would happily take a contract elsewhere if it was a 3/4 year contract without injury caveats. It's a cynical game driven by money after all and really isn't about playing football.

He could go to Southampton, do his achillies again and sit on a higher paid, 3 year contract and play 50 games in 3 seasons. His agent wouldn't give a shit. It's a transaction that looks after his clients financial security.

The club are trying to take the emotion out of this and learn from past errors. I get that.

This is all speculation BTW. I know nowt.
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Dont worry, no one here does, even the plane spotters
 
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Turnip from the Tip said:
It’s time to accept that the club won’t be making any sort of financial commitment to ‘going for it’ to try and get back up in the same timescale of Ross Stewart’s career.

So to that end we might as well sell our best players and operate on a wage bill of a club that is prepared to float about in the middle of the championship.
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Didn't you previously state he was same level as Phillips, Defoe and Bent?

What type of financial commitment do you think a player of that level would require? Possibly one that has just made 200m on transfers and has parachute payments.

To suggest anything other than that level is flat floating about in championship leaves a huge gap.
 
Turnip from the Tip said:
He’s a natural goalscorer up there with Kevin Phillips and Jermaine Defoe and yet we are going to allow him to leave to join a supposed competitor. I say supposed because if we are doing business like this and making such a little attempt to keep quality footballers like Ross Stewart, there are clearly no immediate ambitions to get back to the premier league. That’s fair enough, we are at least nailing our colours to the mast with this transaction and I suppose expectations are being managed accordingly.
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Up there with KP and Defoe? I like the lad but they were both premier league legends and he has had half a good season in the championship.
Turnip from the Tip said:
It’s time to accept that the club won’t be making any sort of financial commitment to ‘going for it’ to try and get back up in the same timescale of Ross Stewart’s career.

So to that end we might as well sell our best players and operate on a wage bill of a club that is prepared to float about in the middle of the championship.
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We are the opposite of ‘going for it’. Not even really ‘trying for it’.
 
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houghton cut head said:
Shows what a state the club was, possibly still is in when we cannot even buy a player for a few £100K outright from Ross County and give them a couple of grand extra for no sell-on clause
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Ross County probably knew how good he was and insisted on it. It’s fairly common - Wolves had a 20% sell on to Kings Lynn when they signed Max Kilman and the newspapers went crazy when he was linked to a £30M move to Napoli!
 
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Coeus said:
Didn't you previously state he was same level as Phillips, Defoe and Bent?

What type of financial commitment do you think a player of that level would require? Possibly one that has just made 200m on transfers and has parachute payments.

To suggest anything other than that level is flat floating about in championship leaves a huge gap.
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No, I did not suggest that at all. I said he was one of a handful of natural goal scorers the club has had in the last 40 years, giving some of those players as other examples.

I think the club could and should have paid Stewart about 30k a week to stay. It’s pie in the sky anyway because if he came back and scored 25 goals we’d probably end up selling him anyway, for about £30m. Essentially it would have just given us a chance of having a crack at promotion again this season, but there is obviously a bigger picture and that’s not the goal at the moment.

The similarities with Alex Neil this time last year are stark. We couldn’t believe he’d want to go to Stoke, a club in the same division who many fans would believe are smaller than us.

But they pay, they can demonstrate ambition to play at a higher level a lot sooner than SAFC can, so we’d better get used to this pattern for the time being at least.
 
Balboa said:
Sell on clauses are so common in football, nothing to do with the club more likely an insistence from Ross County.
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It's common for clubs just to cover themselves, despite how shit and how far we'd fallen we were still seen as a club up the totem pole from Ross county and if he did well here he'd go on to be sold for more than they'd got. So completely understandable for them to want it in there. I bet we have similar clauses with Ballard, Clarke, ekwah etc especially considering we got those for very small fees upfront.
 
Turnip from the Tip said:
No, I did not suggest that at all. I said he was one of a handful of natural goal scorers the club has had in the last 40 years, giving some of those players as other examples.

I think the club could and should have paid Stewart about 30k a week to stay. It’s pie in the sky anyway because if he came back and scored 25 goals we’d probably end up selling him anyway, for about £30m. Essentially it would have just given us a chance of having a crack at promotion again this season, but there is obviously a bigger picture and that’s not the goal at the moment.

The similarities with Alex Neil this time last year are stark. We couldn’t believe he’d want to go to Stoke, a club in the same division who many fans would believe are smaller than us.

But they pay, they can demonstrate ambition to play at a higher level a lot sooner than SAFC can, so we’d better get used to this pattern for the time being at least.
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Well, the club couldn't, that much is easily shown in the accounts given we continually lose millions per year. Putting him on 30k a year, if he would have accepted (I dare say he'll be on a bit more if the fee is near 10m) and the further wage rises that entails would see the club losing 8 figures no problem.

The owner has always stated he doesn't want to heap debt on the club, it doesn't seem prudent to encourage it on a whim.

So what we're really asking is for someone to bankroll us again.
 
houghton cut head said:
Shows what a state the club was, possibly still is in when we cannot even buy a player for a few £100K outright from Ross County and give them a couple of grand extra for no sell-on clause
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It happens at every level. It is widely reported that there is a sell on clause in the Caicedo deal, despite him costing over £100m. Similar to the lad Man City are buying from Wolves, there is a 10% sell on clause.
 
daveybigpotatoes said:
Up there with KP and Defoe? I like the lad but they were both premier league legends and he has had half a good season in the championship.

We are the opposite of ‘going for it’. Not even really ‘trying for it’.
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You haven’t read my post properly. I’m haven’t suggested he is or will be as good as any of those players. My point is that natural finishers - guaranteed goal scorers - don’t come along very often.

Sometimes you have to let them leave because they outgrow the club or we get relegated etc.

Neither applies here - we just don’t want to pay him to stay. It’s a club decision to sell him to a same size club to avoid coughing up his market value. For some, that wont sit well, especially if he goes on to be successful.
 
As it’s so late in the window I can fully understand the clubs insistence on £10m being the package price for Stewart.

Whether Southampton or anyone else consider that a price worth paying remains to be seen but presuming the £10m is £8.5 + £1.5 add ons surely our stance is based on whether we could potentially sign anyone as good as Stewart for £8.5m ?

Unless they’ve got something nobody knows about up their sleeve the answer is undoubtedly no.
 
Coeus said:
Well, the club couldn't, that much is easily shown in the accounts given we continually lose millions per year. Putting him on 30k a year, if he would have accepted (I dare say he'll be on a bit more if the fee is near 10m) and the further wage rises that entails would see the club losing 8 figures no problem.

The owner has always stated he doesn't want to heap debt on the club, it doesn't seem prudent to encourage it on a whim.

So what we're really asking is for someone to bankroll us again.
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That’s fair comment, albeit it quite worrying.
Again though, it’s not really that risky because you can still choose to sell the player at any time. If we don’t go up but player does well, we’d get £20m-£30m easily. Any relegated team or maybe a lower premier league club would take a punt.

Or we do go up and are awash with TV money and choose to keep him or sell him. Nice position to be in.

We seem to have got ourselves into a shit position with our backs against the wall on transfer deadline day. Again.

There is the injury risk and possibility it he doesn’t come back of course. For me, Stewart has enough credit in the bank, any player can get injured and the risk is offset to a degree by the fact we know that he will deliver if he is fit (as opposed to a young foreign lad who may or may not adapt / fit in / turn out to be any good)
 
Turnip from the Tip said:
It’s time to accept that the club won’t be making any sort of financial commitment to ‘going for it’ to try and get back up in the same timescale of Ross Stewart’s career.

So to that end we might as well sell our best players and operate on a wage bill of a club that is prepared to float about in the middle of the championship.
Click to expand...
we literally came above mid table in the championship last year and are one of the highest net spenders in the divison this year..
 
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