Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[Lang Toon Saintee]

My take on "Money being made available to the football department" means that in the interim a chunk of the money could be used to try to tie down Rooney McCart Gordon etc on extended contracts 

[PauloPerth]

A difficult one for the club.  I get the whole not wanting to stand in a player's way thing, but a contract only seems to work one way.  He chose to sign a contract extension on decent money, if his form had dipped, would it be okay for the club to say we don't really want to pay you this anymore as you're not proving good value?  Of course not, but his agent deciding he has to be let out of the contract now is deemed perfectly acceptable.

The manager is able to lift him surely. Maybe a week or two of sulking, but then a case of look your time will come, keep progressing the way you have.  That's the manager's job; Hibs have done it with Nisbet.  I'd be surprised if Ali wouldn't perform to his best for us.

We've watched Ali come on a lot since his debut in a cup tie at Cliftonhill, and it's been brilliant.  We all knew he'd go onto bigger and better things and would fully support him.  But i like a player to do right by the club as well, if that means standing upto his agent a wee bit then so be it.  I think back to David Turnbull signing a contract extension at Motherwell, even though he knew he would be leaving, just to earn the club a higher transfer fee.  In a way this being forced through last minute in the window has potentially cost us some of what we might have made.  But then maybe he turned down offers previously to stay at Saints before signing the extension, who knows?

Stepping back from it, if you'd said to anyone watching him and Kyle McLean getting dominated at Station Park in a league cup group defeat just 2 years ago that he'd become a star player in a double cup winning season and earn the club well over a million, we'd have bitten your hand off!

This batch of young players has been brilliant for the club, but it has to be a conveyor belt, not a big one off truck full.  There's no one obvious just now, but hopefully one or two start to emerge soon. 

Develop player > team achieve success > sell player.  Making this a recurring cycle is the next big challenge for the club.

If so, hopefully in time our players start to command the bigger fees that we hope for; we now need those who move on to prove a success for that to happen.

[Lang Toon Saintee]

7 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

This is kind of it, this summer was probably Saints optimum time to sell given he had 2 years (right?) left on his deal and is obviously coming off the Cup double and generally an all round breakout season with international caps.

Assuming he'd be disinclined to sign an extension you're looking at him still being a saleable asset in January but this time next year the clock's ticking and he only has a year left on his deal. If he sees out his contract then you're looking at a development fee of maybe £500k or so?

Clearly it's a case of a player is only worth what another club is willing to pay but from the outside looking in it feels like Brown has kind of undermined the club a bit in so much as he's started with the whole "Ali will only leave for north of our record fee", then seems to have briefed clubs that £3m was the price (fair enough that's in line with Robertson, McGinn and Turnbull) and ended up accepting less than half that plus bits with a couple of hours to go on deadline.

Kind of feels like in the future anyone looking to buy from Saints is more likely to just ignore the asking price and sit back and wait for the club to roll over given this precedent.

The Chairman has stated that he was looking for a fee higher than the 1.7 million which was our previous highest fee..This deal is an initial 1.2 million progressively rising to 2 million..

[capt_oats]

1 minute ago, Lang Toon Saintee said:

The Chairman has stated that he was looking for a fee higher than the 1.7 million which was our previous highest fee..This deal is an initial 1.2 million progressively rising to 2 million..

Like I said, £1.2m and bits. There's maybe a likelihood that it reaches £2m but it's not guaranteed.

We sold James Scott for just over £1m plus around £500k in add ons. He suffered a serious injury in literally his first training session, a pandemic hit, his club were relegated and now he's on loan at Hibs. We can pretty much kiss that £500k goodbye. 

[The Saintee]

5 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Like I said, £1.2m and bits. There's maybe a likelihood that it reaches £2m but it's not guaranteed.

We sold James Scott for just over £1m plus around £500k in add ons. He suffered a serious injury in literally his first training session, a pandemic hit, his club were relegated and now he's on loan at Hibs. We can pretty much kiss that £500k goodbye. 

Brown only vaguely attempts hard tactics if the initial fee is offered in installments. 

He'd accepted stupid money for Stevie May until the breakdown became clear.

He accepted 200k for Kerr until Wigan came in.

Edited September 2, 2021 by The Saintee

[templeofsaints]

13 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

This batch of young players has been brilliant for the club, but it has to be a conveyor belt, not a big one off truck full.  There's no one obvious just now, but hopefully one or two start to emerge soon. 

Develop player > team achieve success > sell player.  Making this a recurring cycle is the next big challenge for the club.

 

This - unfortunately Covid has probably lost us a load of good prospects since they've missed out on a year of progression (e.g. John Robertson) but Ballantyne has looked good and I've been impressed with Ferguson when I've seen him. 

[capt_oats]

15 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

We've watched Ali come on a lot since his debut in a cup tie at Cliftonhill, and it's been brilliant.  We all knew he'd go onto bigger and better things and would fully support him.  But i like a player to do right by the club as well, if that means standing upto his agent a wee bit then so be it.  I think back to David Turnbull signing a contract extension at Motherwell, even though he knew he would be leaving, just to earn the club a higher transfer fee.  In a way this being forced through last minute in the window has potentially cost us some of what we might have made.  But then maybe he turned down offers previously to stay at Saints before signing the extension, who knows?

Turnbull actually did it twice.

2020 - https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2020/03/11/david-turnbull-signs-contract-extension/

2019 - https://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2019/01/29/david-turnbull-extends-his-motherwell-contract/

[Lang Toon Saintee]

6 minutes ago, The Saintee said:

Brown only vaguely attempts hard tactics if the initial fee is offered in installments. 

He'd accepted stupid money for Stevie May until the breakdown became clear.

He accepted 200k for Kerr until Wigan came in.

When did he state that he had accepted 200k for Kerr ?

[Alert Mongoose]

This was my favourite bit from the article;

He added: “Like you, I am a St Johnstone supporter, 

[The Saintee]

8 minutes ago, Lang Toon Saintee said:

When did he state that he had accepted 200k for Kerr ?

*Sigh* he didn't state that.

Ok. He accepted a bid from Charlton that was reported as being blown out the water by an alternative offer from Wigan. Some people believe that bid from Charlton to have been around 200k. 

[Lang Toon Saintee]

26 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Like I said, £1.2m and bits. There's maybe a likelihood that it reaches £2m but it's not guaranteed.

We sold James Scott for just over £1m plus around £500k in add ons. He suffered a serious injury in literally his first training session, a pandemic hit, his club were relegated and now he's on loan at Hibs. We can pretty much kiss that £500k goodbye. 

Of course there are no certainties in life but I am confident that we will receive the full amount and if he is  sold on for 20 million then I look forward th the additional 5 million also....

Edited September 2, 2021 by Lang Toon Saintee

[stevensanph]

If the money is put back into the football side of the business, it certainly won't be on transfer fees (and indeed i'd hope its not), which suggests it will be used to try and tie down others.

If we hadn't sold McCann/Kerr now we would almost certainly be in a position next summer where we lost Kerr, McCart, Gordon, and Zander for nothing, and McCann for £500k tops (1 year left on contract).

Instead we have £2m in the bank which can now be used to tie down Gordon/Zander/McCart, which, if it happens, is a hell of a lot better than the alternative in my eyes.

[Lang Toon Saintee]

8 minutes ago, The Saintee said:

*Sigh* he didn't state that.

Ok. He accepted a bid from Charlton that was reported as being blown out the water by an alternative offer from Wigan. Some people believe that bid from Charlton to have been around 200k. 

So just some rumour with no basis in fact then ? 

[RandomGuy.]

McCart won't be extending his deal here IMO, it doesn't matter what we offer. Probably the same with Rooney, but he seems daft so guess there's a chance. We couldn't get near what English clubs offer financially.

Gordon is the priority to extend IMO. Clark would be good too but I'm not convinced you break the bank to keep him yet, he'll probably want to see what offers he gets elsewhere anyway. Booth, Muzz and Craig there's no point rushing into extending, they're unlikely to get better offers than ours before the end of the season. Anyone beyond that you would want to keep on?

When it's all done the McCann fee will comfortably top £3m, in 10 years we'll look back on a transfer that more than doubled our previous transfer record, IMO. 

There's absolutely zero chance we accepted £200k for Kerr on deadline day, how can anyone actually believe that?

[RandomGuy.]

Alex Ferguson seems the great hope from the next batch. With some luck Ross Sinclair, Sam Denham, Cammy Ballantyne, Max, and Ferguson all break into the squad and play a part to some degree.

Then you've got Charlie Gilmour who hopefully starts to prove himself, maybe Reece Devine permanently in the Summer, maybe Lars Dendoncker permanently in the Summer, and maybe Cammy MacPherson permanently in the Summer. 

That's a decent batch of young players who you surely have a chance of getting some "success" out of.

Add into that Vertainen who's only 22 too.

Edited September 2, 2021 by RandomGuy.

[Fife Saint]

Call me a cynic but I don't see Brown trying down 3 or 4 contracts that endanger cashflow in the event of relegation, regardless of how likely or unlikely relegation is in near future.

[PauloPerth]

3 minutes ago, Fife Saint said:

Call me a cynic but I don't see Brown trying down 3 or 4 contracts that endanger cashflow in the event of relegation, regardless of how likely or unlikely relegation is in near future.

Could put in relegation clauses.

[Fife Saint]

Could put in relegation clauses.

Making any offer less attractive to someone who has an agent saying you can make 2 or 3 times what you make here whether St Johnstone get relegated or not..

[Steve McQueen]

Think it all started going wrong with his north of record transfer statement that made it seem we were looking for £1.75m. 

 

if he’s stated the. we were looking for similar to Turnbull then we may not have got that but may have got more than the record.

[PSJ.84]

Had seen on twitter the rumours of 200k but they were batted away by one of the Kaylor’s, imagine they’d have a reasonable idea.