Sorry to put a downer on things, but is it just me that's concerned about our Finances? We only escaped breaching P & S regulations this season thanks to the allowable deductions of the academy, women's team and infrastructure costs. We posted a modest profit on player trading of about £4.5 million if my memory serves and yet still posted a hefty loss of over £15 million. The way things are looking at the moment it's hard to see how we can avoid making a loss on player trading, unless there's an unexpected windfall.
With the sell-on fees for Piroe, Whittaker and Joseph added to the fee for Grimes' sale we've made in the region of around £7 million. You can probably deduct a couple of million from this for compensation to Williams and his assistants, plus a likely sizeable loan fee for O'Brien. So we have about £5 million to play with. I'm guessing that Inoussa's £5 million fee is probably around £3 million up front. So that leaves just about £2 million to play with for multiple acquisitions, just to break even.
We may get a million, perhaps a million and a half for Yates, but apart from that who else might we sell? There's been rumours about Vipotnik attracting interest, and he may leave for around £3 million. The only possible big money sale to an established Premier League side would be Eom, and who knows, Inoussa's arrival may be connected to Eom's impending departure. If he went to an established PL side we'd be looking at at least £10 million.
Realistically, if we're to make even a modest profit on player trading this summer we will need at least one big ticket sale. Apart from Eom (and I don't think that's likely) I can't see any other departures generating significant revenue. But the owners are well aware of the P & S constraints - so this has to figure heavily in their thinking. One hopes.
