Planet Swans ArchivesAnother day, another transfer bid turned down – this time it’s Rochdale turning down a bid for Grant Holt who join a club that includes Bristol City (Marc Goodfellow) and Rushden (Andy Burgess)
There are three things in these incidents that give me some confidence in what is going on at the moment
The first one is the obvious one that we are looking to strengthen our playing squad as we make what we hope will be a final push for promotion. And we are making moves towards players that we know can add to the quality that we already have. I see little point in bringing new players in if they cannot add to the depth of the squad having previously seen the likes of Richard Jones and Craig Stiens arrive here merely to make up the numbers it seems. More quality means less transfer movement needed in the summer and the players we are being linked with will certainly be of use to us next season.
The second one is the fact that we are bidding money for these players. In previous seasons most of our transfer activity has been around loan signings and free transfers but now we are using the money we have in the club through TV money, gate money and the cup run to ensure that it goes where it should do. I did hear a rumour that all of the money we got from Sky for the Reading game will go into team strengthening and this has to be applauded.
The final one is that we have a price for players and we don’t budge on that even if it means missing out. It’s good business sense not to pay over the odds for any player. You can understand the likes of Rushden and Rochdale wanting more money as these are key players to us but we stand our ground knowing the maximum we are prepared to pay. I wouldn’t be surprised to see us increase the bid for Holt but that is a different issue at the moment – for both Burgess and Goodfellow we stood our ground. In this day and age ‘breaking the bank’ is long gone and whilst some clubs are happy to get into debt in the long run it can only mean bad news for the long term future of the club unless you have a Russian in charge apparantely!
I still get a good feeling about things at the club and the way that we are moving forward and I remain optimistic about our immediate and long term future. We have people who have learned from mistakes but we know want the best for the club and on a financial footing it is very evident that we are getting stronger and this time around there is no-one there to bleed the club dry for their own personal gain. (Rumours of Huw Jenkins using the credit card money to buy an island in the South Pacific are unfounded)
Let’s keep making bids and sooner or later we will get one of our targets but in the meantime let’s remain focused on who we want and how much we are prepared to pay and not be held to ransom by any other club. Same goes with anyone we ever consider letting leave – we have a price and we stick to it no matter what.
This is a club going places and as we slowly approach 12 months in the job for Kenny Jackett sometimes it’s hard to forget just how far we have progressed in that period of time.
And long may it continue
