Summer Window 2026 - Rumours and Discussion

Leuth

ShootersHillGuru said:

Leuth said:

Scoham said:

Leuth said:

Scoham said:

FAVADDICK said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Davis keillor dunn = £2 million 
Morishita ( blackburn ) = £2.1 million 
Mehmeti ( ipswich ) = £3 million 
Irankunda ( watford ) = £3 million 

Thats just a few, it can be done, it just depends on who's doing the shopping for them 

DKD hasn’t proven himself at this level, he’s barely played for Wrexham.

You also have to take wages into account, presumably Ipswich pay a lot more than us.

If Carey goes we need to replace his goals, having a better player wouldn’t be enough. We already struggle to score as it is.

'How will we replace his goals?' strikes me as absurd nonsense. We set up this season to feed him shots - it was pretty much our only attacking tactic - and it got us 8 goals. Next season, how's about signing some players who'll feed our actual strikers? 

I want to see more quality from the midfield too but I don’t expect us to completely change the way we play. Why don’t we keep him and strengthen the midfield?

Of course, but if a decent offer comes in, he's exactly the sort of player we should cash in on to balance the books, is my point. What we need most of all is quality on the wings, and that will take investment 

Of course there’s something in balancing the books but not in this case. We struggled this season and we need to strengthen all over the pitch to both survive again and perhaps progress. Taking £3 -4 million for Carey would straight away necessitate spending at least half of that on a replacement who might or might not work out. Personally unless the offers just too good to refuse I think he has to stay. 

Knibbs and Fullah are just as likely as Carey to fire next season if we get some decent width imo

Crispywood

FAVADDICK said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Davis keillor dunn = £2 million 
Morishita ( blackburn ) = £2.1 million 
Mehmeti ( ipswich ) = £3 million 
Irankunda ( watford ) = £3 million 

Thats just a few, it can be done, it just depends on who's doing the shopping for them 

1) DKD hasn’t touched championship minutes yet and Wrexham probably paying him 15-20k a week. 

2) Morishita one of those massive gambles no guarantee it would have worked.
3) Mehmeti had 6 months left on his contract and Ipswich probably offered him silly wages. 

4) Irakunda is a winger cost 3.5M and Bayern hold a 50% sell on and buy back 

You’ve come up with 4 examples there and Morishita is the only realistic example and even then that was a complete gamble from Poland than being a sure thing. 

Just proved it’s much harder for a club of our stature to replace a good championship level midfielder for 3M than you would think 

NabySarr

Crispywood said:

FAVADDICK said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Davis keillor dunn = £2 million 
Morishita ( blackburn ) = £2.1 million 
Mehmeti ( ipswich ) = £3 million 
Irankunda ( watford ) = £3 million 

Thats just a few, it can be done, it just depends on who's doing the shopping for them 

1) DKD hasn’t touched championship minutes yet and Wrexham probably paying him 15-20k a week. 

2) Morishita one of those massive gambles no guarantee it would have worked.
3) Mehmeti had 6 months left on his contract and Ipswich probably offered him silly wages. 

4) Irakunda is a winger cost 3.5M and Bayern hold a 50% sell on and buy back 

You’ve come up with 4 examples there and Morishita is the only realistic example and even then that was a complete gamble from Poland than being a sure thing. 

Just proved it’s much harder for a club of our stature to replace a good championship level midfielder for 3M than you would think 

DKD isn’t even really a number 10 (certainly wouldn’t be if he played for us in a 3-5-2). He played as a striker for Barnsley and if we signed him he’d be playing as a striker with Carey in the 10, not replacing him 

Bostonaddick

We are not a deep enough team to be selling one of our better players for 3 million only to bring in another midfielder who may or may not be better for a similar fee.  We should be offloading our fringe players and then upgrading our current starters not swapping them out.  Not sure I agree that TC has a better upside than Carey anyway (not that it is a competition between the two as they play different positions). TC does one thing well dribble in a straight line with pace.  That’s it and I am not sure if that will change.

NabySarr

Bostonaddick said:

We are not a deep enough team to be selling one of our better players for 3 million only to bring in another midfielder who may or may not be better for a similar fee.  We should be offloading our fringe players and then upgrading our current starters not swapping them out.  Not sure I agree that TC has a better upside than Carey anyway (not that it is a competition between the two as they play different positions). TC does one thing well dribble in a straight line with pace.  That’s it and I am not sure if that will change.

TC has a higher ceiling than probably any of our players, but he also has a lower floor. He could just stay as he is now, a player that can run all day and a brilliant 1v1 dribbler but not much else. Or he could add that something else and be a very good player at this level 

I think more championship teams would be interested in signing TC than Carey at the moment. What TC has is much harder to find than what Carey has 

Crispywood

Year 3 of begging the club signs Marc Leonard 

CB1

Crispywood said:

Year 3 of begging the club signs Marc Leonard 

Chris Wilder was watching him yesterday against Rangers. Would absolutely love him in our midfield. 

Carter

Crispywood said:

Year 3 of begging the club signs Marc Leonard 

Good player, I'd be really pleasantly shocked if we got him 

NabySarr

Crispywood said:

Year 3 of begging the club signs Marc Leonard 

Unfortunately think we’ve missed our chance there. Not sure we ever had one tbh as would have been up against Birmingham, Hearts and now Sheffield United, Hearts and probably more 

North Lower Neil

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

NabySarr

North Lower Neil said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

I think people are assuming it’s really easy to sign foreign players for good value that are good enough to go straight into the championship. Spoiler alert it isn’t

Signings from overseas can be great, but even the best ones often take time to settle and a lot will never work out. It’s not a magic bullet solution that we can just sell Carey for £3m and sign someone better from Europe with the money

TheHerminator

NabySarr said:

North Lower Neil said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

I think people are assuming it’s really easy to sign foreign players for good value that are good enough to go straight into the championship. Spoiler alert it isn’t

Signings from overseas can be great, but even the best ones often take time to settle and a lot will never work out. It’s not a magic bullet solution that we can just sell Carey for £3m and sign someone better from Europe with the money

Precisely. Otherwise why wouldn't the club who's just bought Carey for £3m skip that part and buy the much better foreign player?

cafc_se7

It’s refreshing to be having these sorts of debates. Jesus we could be arguing over how easy or hard league one would be next season with Leicester and the Massives in it. 

fenaddick

TheHerminator said:

NabySarr said:

North Lower Neil said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

I think people are assuming it’s really easy to sign foreign players for good value that are good enough to go straight into the championship. Spoiler alert it isn’t

Signings from overseas can be great, but even the best ones often take time to settle and a lot will never work out. It’s not a magic bullet solution that we can just sell Carey for £3m and sign someone better from Europe with the money

Precisely. Otherwise why wouldn't the club who's just bought Carey for £3m skip that part and buy the much better foreign player?

Because their scouting network might not have identified them

TheHerminator

fenaddick said:

TheHerminator said:

NabySarr said:

North Lower Neil said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

I think people are assuming it’s really easy to sign foreign players for good value that are good enough to go straight into the championship. Spoiler alert it isn’t

Signings from overseas can be great, but even the best ones often take time to settle and a lot will never work out. It’s not a magic bullet solution that we can just sell Carey for £3m and sign someone better from Europe with the money

Precisely. Otherwise why wouldn't the club who's just bought Carey for £3m skip that part and buy the much better foreign player?

Because their scouting network might not have identified them

Maybe, but then why are we relying on ours to do what other clubs can't and in the mean time letting go 8-10 potential goals a season?

Callumcafc

Callumcafc said:

Carey took 92 shots this season, the most at the club by some distance (TC second with 63). 

So yes he scored a decent number of goals but our entire team was built around setting him up for strikes (sitting on the edge of the box at corners etc.).

He’s a good player and offers something no one else at the club does, but I’d be disappointed if he was our #1 shot taker next season too.


Outputs (goals scored) were high (top 9%) because the inputs (shots taken) were high (top 6%).

If our style of play evolves next season, as we all hope it should, I’d think Carey will see a significant decrease in number of shots he takes across the full season. 

That would mean that 8 goals this season is a very good return and he’s unlikely to match that again going forward. 

If he wants to be part of that evolution he’ll need to contribute more than just goals - he’ll need to become a more effective creator and link between defence and attack.

I can obviously see the argument for keeping him but also see the argument for “cashing in” if the offer is large enough.

fenaddick

TheHerminator said:

fenaddick said:

TheHerminator said:

NabySarr said:

North Lower Neil said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

I think people are assuming it’s really easy to sign foreign players for good value that are good enough to go straight into the championship. Spoiler alert it isn’t

Signings from overseas can be great, but even the best ones often take time to settle and a lot will never work out. It’s not a magic bullet solution that we can just sell Carey for £3m and sign someone better from Europe with the money

Precisely. Otherwise why wouldn't the club who's just bought Carey for £3m skip that part and buy the much better foreign player?

Because their scouting network might not have identified them

Maybe, but then why are we relying on ours to do what other clubs can't and in the mean time letting go 8-10 potential goals a season?

I don't think we should let him go but equally this could be a discussion about letting Alfie May go and our recrtuitment team identified a more suitable fit. Our recruitment team already identified Carey, why can't they identify better?

Pelling1993

You'd think/hope that the only way Carey would go is if we got a silly offer of like £5m+ otherwise it doesn't seem worth the risk to offload him for someone else who may or may not work. Think Carey would look better with better players around him and also finding some of his form from earlier in the campaign. 

NabySarr

Callumcafc said:

Callumcafc said:

Carey took 92 shots this season, the most at the club by some distance (TC second with 63). 

So yes he scored a decent number of goals but our entire team was built around setting him up for strikes (sitting on the edge of the box at corners etc.).

He’s a good player and offers something no one else at the club does, but I’d be disappointed if he was our #1 shot taker next season too.


Outputs (goals scored) were high (top 9%) because the inputs (shots taken) were high (top 6%).

If our style of play evolves next season, as we all hope it should, I’d think Carey will see a significant decrease in number of shots he takes across the full season. 

That would mean that 8 goals this season is a very good return and he’s unlikely to match that again going forward. 

If he wants to be part of that evolution he’ll need to contribute more than just goals - he’ll need to become a more effective creator and link between defence and attack.

I can obviously see the argument for keeping him but also see the argument for “cashing in” if the offer is large enough.

I really think people are overestimating how much this is going to change. The evolution will just be back towards the kind of team we were the back end of last season and early part of this season. A more effective team and one that creates more chances yes, but we aren’t going to fundamentally change how we play and start passing through teams. The Carey role is not going to change much, Jones has always wanted energetic attacking midfielders that can press and score goals, that isn’t going to change. If we lost Carey, we’d use Knibbs in the same way and recruit a similar replacement 

TheHerminator

fenaddick said:

TheHerminator said:

fenaddick said:

TheHerminator said:

NabySarr said:

North Lower Neil said:

cafc_se7 said:

I can’t believe some of these comments on Carey. You lot must live in dreamland if you think we easily get somebody else in who’s better. Particularly for “3 million”.

Exactly this - we've seen £2-3m odd can possibly only get you a L1 player you hope will step up, like Knibbs/Kelman.

Why sell a player you know can play in this league to buy one you hope can?

If someone offers daft money for him, fine.

I think people are assuming it’s really easy to sign foreign players for good value that are good enough to go straight into the championship. Spoiler alert it isn’t

Signings from overseas can be great, but even the best ones often take time to settle and a lot will never work out. It’s not a magic bullet solution that we can just sell Carey for £3m and sign someone better from Europe with the money

Precisely. Otherwise why wouldn't the club who's just bought Carey for £3m skip that part and buy the much better foreign player?

Because their scouting network might not have identified them

Maybe, but then why are we relying on ours to do what other clubs can't and in the mean time letting go 8-10 potential goals a season?

I don't think we should let him go but equally this could be a discussion about letting Alfie May go and our recrtuitment team identified a more suitable fit. Our recruitment team already identified Carey, why can't they identify better?

My opinion is that Carey will be more effective with better players around him, and that scoring 8 goals in a relatively poor side means we should be looking to improve those around him before we ship out that scoring ability.

Lots of ifs and maybes though. Let's see what NJ does. Be amazed if he sells him 

Garrymanilow

People are going to have to accept that players like Carey who signed on a free transfer are going to be sold if there's a decent profit to be made. The sustainability rules are pretty restrictive for a club of our size and making a £4-5m profit on a player is something that is unlikely to be turned down regardless of who it is. The focus will then be on finding a suitable replacement, though I wouldn't be that shocked if the replacements were Knibbs and Fullah

Leuth

Garrymanilow said:

People are going to have to accept that players like Carey who signed on a free transfer are going to be sold if there's a decent profit to be made. The sustainability rules are pretty restrictive for a club of our size and making a £4-5m profit on a player is something that is unlikely to be turned down regardless of who it is. The focus will then be on finding a suitable replacement, though I wouldn't be that shocked if the replacements were Knibbs and Fullah

Oh look, gets a bunch of likes when YOU say it ffs

Scoham

Garrymanilow said:

People are going to have to accept that players like Carey who signed on a free transfer are going to be sold if there's a decent profit to be made. The sustainability rules are pretty restrictive for a club of our size and making a £4-5m profit on a player is something that is unlikely to be turned down regardless of who it is. The focus will then be on finding a suitable replacement, though I wouldn't be that shocked if the replacements were Knibbs and Fullah

The main debate seems to be on how much is too good to turn down. I don’t see how the £2-4m some suggested would be enough, we’ve paid around that for players who were in L1 last season. We’ve also turned down offers from Brighton for Mbick around that range.

If we’re getting £5-6m+ offers then it’s more understandable as that could fund a couple of signings. I expect us to make those sort of sales sooner than later. Anything below that for first teamers and our best young players would be going back to the Roland days of selling players on the cheap.

BigDiddy

Bostonaddick said:

There is a reason he has the most clearances in the championship.  One is he is an excellent defender and two he is the most comfortable clearing the ball and safe passes along the back line.  He is not your traditional ball playing center half.  There will be plenty of interest in him.  I just doubt any payout would be high enough to justify the risk of losing him from the squad.  I fully expect his agent to leak some rumors this summer as a negotiation tactic and I also expect him to sign an extension.

Hope he stays, but fear will go.

Great player for us, but I expect he will earn a lot more at another club.

ShootersHillGuru

Garrymanilow said:

People are going to have to accept that players like Carey who signed on a free transfer are going to be sold if there's a decent profit to be made. The sustainability rules are pretty restrictive for a club of our size and making a £4-5m profit on a player is something that is unlikely to be turned down regardless of who it is. The focus will then be on finding a suitable replacement, though I wouldn't be that shocked if the replacements were Knibbs and Fullah

£4 - 5 million yes. £3 - 4 million no. I also can’t see in any way anyone is going to offer £5 million

fenaddick

ShootersHillGuru said:

Garrymanilow said:

People are going to have to accept that players like Carey who signed on a free transfer are going to be sold if there's a decent profit to be made. The sustainability rules are pretty restrictive for a club of our size and making a £4-5m profit on a player is something that is unlikely to be turned down regardless of who it is. The focus will then be on finding a suitable replacement, though I wouldn't be that shocked if the replacements were Knibbs and Fullah

£4 - 5 million yes. £3 - 4 million no.

And both yes and no if it's bang on £4m?

Elthamaddick

I mean anything £4m+ then I suspect it's bye bye Carey..........however personally I can't see anyone offering even half that

Pelling1993

fenaddick said:

ShootersHillGuru said:

Garrymanilow said:

People are going to have to accept that players like Carey who signed on a free transfer are going to be sold if there's a decent profit to be made. The sustainability rules are pretty restrictive for a club of our size and making a £4-5m profit on a player is something that is unlikely to be turned down regardless of who it is. The focus will then be on finding a suitable replacement, though I wouldn't be that shocked if the replacements were Knibbs and Fullah

£4 - 5 million yes. £3 - 4 million no.

And both yes and no if it's bang on £4m?

Dual-registration 

BigDiddy

Holdkneebomb said:

Crispywood said:

Gisappointed said:

Assuming all those with contracts running down, re-sign, I believe we have a better chance of improving the squad if we go 4-1-3-2 or 4-1-2-3

Mannion
Ramsay/Sichenze/Asiimwe
Jones
Graham/Bell
Edwards
Apter/Fev
De Keersmaeke
JRC/New
Campbell
Kelman
Leaburn/Jatta/New/Kanu

Perhaps four signings, one on a free, one cheap.

As our current set-up:-

Mannion
Ramsay/Sichenze/ Asiimwe
Jones
Graham/Bell/Edwards
New/Fukuda
New
New
New
New
Kelman
Leaburn/Jatta/New/Kanu

To replace the five with decent quality will be expensive.  I hope Anderson will play a part. Tangerines love him.

Any money spent must be starters. Obviously Graham,  De Keersmaeker and Jatta are suggestions. Id also add Iorpenda as a squad addition.

Perhaps go with a four until we are established, then go back to Nathans five.

We definitely won't be going for players at L2 last year in Iorpenda (L1 huddersfield didnt want him) or Jatta
I'm not sure how you watched Anderson earlier this year and think he's suddenly the solution
Jones is never going to suddenly switch formation as a Plan A considering all his success is with a 352.

Really don’t get the negativity around Anderson. Home grown, still only 21 and improving, has had an excellent loan at Blackpool helping turn them from relegation candidates to one of the most in form sides in the division, really hope Jones finds a place in the squad for him

Unless he has learnt how to pass the ball and create chances for us, I doubt he would add any value.

thenewbie

Now we've heard rumours that Carey may go and also that Coventry might also go. Who knows if it's true, maybe one is maybe both but IF it is that's one hell of a gamble. We'd need to replace both with better options and in the meantime our midfield is Docherty (game but limited), Anderson (Docherty but not as good), Knibbs (coming back from injury) and Berry (who is, well, Berry.)

I know we need to improve the midfield but this feels like it's either going to be completely successful or completely disastrous with no in between.