Micah Mbick - 20/1/2026 The Athletic reporting Brighton have had 2 bids for him rejected (p12)

fenaddick

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

WSS

fenaddick said:

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility for a PL club.

fenaddick

WSS said:

fenaddick said:

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility for a PL club.

Rio Ngumoha recently signed his first pro deal with Liverpool and is reported to be on £1k a week. Now obviously he’s 17 and there will be massive incentives and bonuses in there but he has played Champions League and Premier League football this season. Obviously all reported numbers are to be taken with a pinch of salt but given both are in their first season of senior football it’s a semi useful comparison. PL academies have very strict wage structures that the tend to stick to so as not to upset squad dynamics, even for players as talented as Ngumoha

Garrymanilow

NabySarr said:

Gisappointed said:

With speculation on Mbick, can I throw out some values for our squad of fairly proven Championship players or latent talent.

Kaminsky £1m
Pre-injury Ramsay £3m+
Coventry £1m+
Kanu £2m+
Mbick £5m+
Leaburn £2-3m+
Apter £2m+
Kelman £2m+
TC £2-3m+
Fullah £1m+ (will get minutes)
Carey £2m+
Zach £1m (will get minutes)
Fit Edwards £2m
Jury out on Knibbs/JRC

I think only Ramsay and Mbick have the quality to launch us to the Prem, but Miles and Fullah have the potential, with Collins an unknown. 

Possibly six-eight upgrades to get us up, given Jones and Bell are approaching their sell by dates. 

I think Carey might actually fetch the biggest fee at the moment. On track for a 10 goal season as an attacking midfielder in his first championship season. Those kind of numbers will attract interest 

I agree with you on Carey but it's his third Championship season. He made 11 apps in his first half season for Blackpool and scored once and then made 37 apps there the next season and scored 3 goals. Given his age and the fact he'd been playing non-league before that those are pretty decent numbers. We're quite lucky that Blackpool went down and stayed down so he became available. 

PragueAddick

WSS said:

fenaddick said:

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility for a PL club.

No, some of them are run by idiots with more money than sense, effectively civil servants in the pay of foreign states 😉 But not Brighton, they are razor sharp operators trying to do the Chelsea player-farm model better than Chelsea. I don't resent Brighton, doing what they do, because of our affinities which amount to more than just hating Palace; I resent the long term obscenity of the FAPL being set up as a separate commercial entity within a supposed pyramid. That simple fateful disgraceful decision in 1991 is at the bottom of all this kind of financial shithousery. And now at last, some influential people notably Kieran Maguire, are speaking up about it.

Covered End

The Red Robin said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

It’s quite clear Prague, that this lot don’t have the money we were led to believe. Look at this transfer window. Loans and freebies. 

Have you heard of this?

If so can you explain why you think Charlton are exempted?

The financial restrictions in the EFL Championship are called Profit and Sustainability Rules (P&S). 

These regulations, which are a form of Financial Fair Play (FFP) specifically for the Championship, dictate the maximum losses a club is permitted to incur over a rolling three-year period. 

Key details regarding P&S rules include:

• Permitted Losses: Championship clubs are generally permitted to lose up to £39 million over a rolling three-season period.
• Owner Investment: While the limit is £39m, a significant portion of that (usually £35m) must be guaranteed by the club's owners via equity funding, rather than debt.
• Breaches: If a club exceeds these limits, they can be subject to sanctions, including transfer embargoes and points deductions.

kodfish

fenaddick said:

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

Krauhaus at Bromley, on loan from Brighton is on £9k a week apparently. 

Athletico Charlton

Covered End said:

The Red Robin said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

It’s quite clear Prague, that this lot don’t have the money we were led to believe. Look at this transfer window. Loans and freebies. 

Have you heard of this?

If so can you explain why you think Charlton are exempted?

The financial restrictions in the EFL Championship are called Profit and Sustainability Rules (P&S). 

These regulations, which are a form of Financial Fair Play (FFP) specifically for the Championship, dictate the maximum losses a club is permitted to incur over a rolling three-year period. 

Key details regarding P&S rules include:

• Permitted Losses: Championship clubs are generally permitted to lose up to £39 million over a rolling three-season period.
• Owner Investment: While the limit is £39m, a significant portion of that (usually £35m) must be guaranteed by the club's owners via equity funding, rather than debt.
• Breaches: If a club exceeds these limits, they can be subject to sanctions, including transfer embargoes and points deductions.

What are our losses. I think Rodwell said £13M this season, which puts us right in the wire of a rolling yr allowance v £39M over 3 years... Except that

a) the £39M is now £41.5M and
for p+s purposes you can ignore any spend made on the academy, infrastructure improvements and the women's team.

So I wonder what headroom we really have.

(To be clear, it's rhetorical and I have no illusions that owners should keep chucking this money at us).

DOUCHER

WSS said:

fenaddick said:

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility for a PL club.

Lewis Bate moved from chelsea to Leeds academy at a similar age to mbick is now and he was on a lot closer to £20k than £1k a week at Leeds and had been on a lot closer to £10k for several years at Chelsea. Beadle moved at 16 for a significant increase but it was more to do with the coaching and the loan options brighton could offer - at the time we were sending our keepers on loan to 2nd division scottish clubs and had just replaced a respected goalkeeping coach in andy marshall with millwall's academy goalkeeper coach - thanks to that plum who sandgaard employed - forget his name but was fa academy technical advisor or something before he came to us and left as was found out as being hopeless.

CaptainRobbo

DOUCHER said:

WSS said:

fenaddick said:

Alwaysneil said:

Its the 20 times salary (if remotely close to correct) thats the issue). No matter how thankful he is to us for his development thats hard to turn down, or have turned down for you.

I don’t buy it, let’s say he’s on 1k a week, there’s no way Brighton are paying academy kids (which is what he would be) 20k a week

I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility for a PL club.

Lewis Bate moved from chelsea to Leeds academy at a similar age to mbick is now and he was on a lot closer to £20k than £1k a week at Leeds and had been on a lot closer to £10k for several years at Chelsea. Beadle moved at 16 for a significant increase but it was more to do with the coaching and the loan options brighton could offer - at the time we were sending our keepers on loan to 2nd division scottish clubs and had just replaced a respected goalkeeping coach in andy marshall with millwall's academy goalkeeper coach - thanks to that plum who sandgaard employed - forget his name but was fa academy technical advisor or something before he came to us and left as was found out as being hopeless.

Ged Roddy MBE no less.

TellyTubby

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

fenaddick said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

Far too early to see with these owners if it is a business model or not. They’ve rejected offers for players before, it just doesn’t he spoken about. They aren’t selling at the first offer like TS. He might not even be gone. I’d save your anger until it’s confirmed and we have a vague idea of the fee 

i’m talking about the business model as many fans think it is. Its not the model pursued by Sunderland (post Methven) or Ipswich to get them promoted from this division. People talk about “investing” the fee in supposedly more  seasoned players. They forget that such players also come with seasoned salary demands. And then there is the Academy itself. M’bick is easily the most promising product through there since Lookman. If we give him away now for £5m -or probably less - you cant say the Academy earns its keep, if you then blow the money on a
modestly talented Championship player, which is all we’d get if you amortise the salary on top of say a £3m fee. And as for the line about no guarantees that he will fulfil his promise; there were no guarantees with Olaofe, Apter, or Kelman either. Yet very few minded that we were paying sizeable  transfer fees to bring them in. Pity nobody insisted on a money-back guarantee for them!

I'd argue that 5m for a kid who's never scored above league two level is not 'giving him away'.

Are there many other examples of fees that high for players who've only scored at that level?

On the surface that’s a reasonable question, but IMO too crude a way to value a player. If you take Lookman, the one player for whom we got fair value at the time. Lookman basically had 12 months as a first team player here. In that time he scored 7 goals according to FotMob stats. Everton are said to have paid £7,5m up front with addons taking the fee to £11m. According to a detailed answer from Claude AI Everton’s revenues have risen 54% from that season to the 23/24 season. Everton of course are an under-achiever in the FAPL, and the bigger clubs have seen revenue rise by far more, due to big increases from European competitions. So that gives you a conservative benchmark of what Mbick might be worth if he stays with us a full season: £12m plus add-ons. 

This of course will trigger people saying that Mbick isn’t as good as Lookman, etc. However they may first want to remind themselves what people on here wrote about Lookman at various stages during his 12 months in the squad.

Lookman played for us in the Championship and then half a season in league one, so that's not really comparable to Mbick.

It is a - conservative- benchmark for his value if he stays with us next season and performs as well as Lookman did. 

It’s conservative because the revenues of the Big 6 have moved up far more than the rest, and revenues of European clubs have also generally greatly improved, (France being an exception when you take Plastic Saint-Germain out of the analysis). All of this inflation filters down the English pyramid. However revenues in the Championship have not gone up to match this inflation, due to us surrendering control of TV money to FAPL club owners since 1991. That is why the Championship is rated by club finance directors as the biggest financial basket case of the lot. You have to pay £2m or more for strikers who cannot manage to score more than 3 goals by February. And that is why it does my head in that we are prepared to let young talent go at the first whiff of money.

All that said, he hasn’t gone. Maybe I have once again under-estimated Big Jim. I hope so. I also hope he doesnt read CL, since I would very much like to see Mbick scoring in front of the Covered End. Is that really such a big ask? 

You're making a completely unrelated point.

Every single one of us knows that if he stays with us and does well in the Championship then his value will skyrocket. 

The debate is about whether the club cashes in BEFORE that happens. Because there is a chance it may not happen and then we never get a 5m bid ever again. 

Pretty sure there were similar debates on here post-Burstow when Leaburn came onto the scene. What would we do if we got an offer? Keep him and he'll be worth 10m+ soon etc. Three seasons on from his debut season there haven't been any offers.

How do you know this? I thought i read somewhere that we had fended off interest a while back.

Bids are often made public if one of the parties involved is promoting dark arts to force a move through.

fenaddick

TellyTubby said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

fenaddick said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

Far too early to see with these owners if it is a business model or not. They’ve rejected offers for players before, it just doesn’t he spoken about. They aren’t selling at the first offer like TS. He might not even be gone. I’d save your anger until it’s confirmed and we have a vague idea of the fee 

i’m talking about the business model as many fans think it is. Its not the model pursued by Sunderland (post Methven) or Ipswich to get them promoted from this division. People talk about “investing” the fee in supposedly more  seasoned players. They forget that such players also come with seasoned salary demands. And then there is the Academy itself. M’bick is easily the most promising product through there since Lookman. If we give him away now for £5m -or probably less - you cant say the Academy earns its keep, if you then blow the money on a
modestly talented Championship player, which is all we’d get if you amortise the salary on top of say a £3m fee. And as for the line about no guarantees that he will fulfil his promise; there were no guarantees with Olaofe, Apter, or Kelman either. Yet very few minded that we were paying sizeable  transfer fees to bring them in. Pity nobody insisted on a money-back guarantee for them!

I'd argue that 5m for a kid who's never scored above league two level is not 'giving him away'.

Are there many other examples of fees that high for players who've only scored at that level?

On the surface that’s a reasonable question, but IMO too crude a way to value a player. If you take Lookman, the one player for whom we got fair value at the time. Lookman basically had 12 months as a first team player here. In that time he scored 7 goals according to FotMob stats. Everton are said to have paid £7,5m up front with addons taking the fee to £11m. According to a detailed answer from Claude AI Everton’s revenues have risen 54% from that season to the 23/24 season. Everton of course are an under-achiever in the FAPL, and the bigger clubs have seen revenue rise by far more, due to big increases from European competitions. So that gives you a conservative benchmark of what Mbick might be worth if he stays with us a full season: £12m plus add-ons. 

This of course will trigger people saying that Mbick isn’t as good as Lookman, etc. However they may first want to remind themselves what people on here wrote about Lookman at various stages during his 12 months in the squad.

Lookman played for us in the Championship and then half a season in league one, so that's not really comparable to Mbick.

It is a - conservative- benchmark for his value if he stays with us next season and performs as well as Lookman did. 

It’s conservative because the revenues of the Big 6 have moved up far more than the rest, and revenues of European clubs have also generally greatly improved, (France being an exception when you take Plastic Saint-Germain out of the analysis). All of this inflation filters down the English pyramid. However revenues in the Championship have not gone up to match this inflation, due to us surrendering control of TV money to FAPL club owners since 1991. That is why the Championship is rated by club finance directors as the biggest financial basket case of the lot. You have to pay £2m or more for strikers who cannot manage to score more than 3 goals by February. And that is why it does my head in that we are prepared to let young talent go at the first whiff of money.

All that said, he hasn’t gone. Maybe I have once again under-estimated Big Jim. I hope so. I also hope he doesnt read CL, since I would very much like to see Mbick scoring in front of the Covered End. Is that really such a big ask? 

You're making a completely unrelated point.

Every single one of us knows that if he stays with us and does well in the Championship then his value will skyrocket. 

The debate is about whether the club cashes in BEFORE that happens. Because there is a chance it may not happen and then we never get a 5m bid ever again. 

Pretty sure there were similar debates on here post-Burstow when Leaburn came onto the scene. What would we do if we got an offer? Keep him and he'll be worth 10m+ soon etc. Three seasons on from his debut season there haven't been any offers.

How do you know this? I thought i read somewhere that we had fended off interest a while back.

Bids are often made public if one of the parties involved is promoting dark arts to force a move through.

Pretty sure there was talk of a Bundesliga bid a couple of years ago

CaptainRobbo

TellyTubby said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

fenaddick said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

Far too early to see with these owners if it is a business model or not. They’ve rejected offers for players before, it just doesn’t he spoken about. They aren’t selling at the first offer like TS. He might not even be gone. I’d save your anger until it’s confirmed and we have a vague idea of the fee 

i’m talking about the business model as many fans think it is. Its not the model pursued by Sunderland (post Methven) or Ipswich to get them promoted from this division. People talk about “investing” the fee in supposedly more  seasoned players. They forget that such players also come with seasoned salary demands. And then there is the Academy itself. M’bick is easily the most promising product through there since Lookman. If we give him away now for £5m -or probably less - you cant say the Academy earns its keep, if you then blow the money on a
modestly talented Championship player, which is all we’d get if you amortise the salary on top of say a £3m fee. And as for the line about no guarantees that he will fulfil his promise; there were no guarantees with Olaofe, Apter, or Kelman either. Yet very few minded that we were paying sizeable  transfer fees to bring them in. Pity nobody insisted on a money-back guarantee for them!

I'd argue that 5m for a kid who's never scored above league two level is not 'giving him away'.

Are there many other examples of fees that high for players who've only scored at that level?

On the surface that’s a reasonable question, but IMO too crude a way to value a player. If you take Lookman, the one player for whom we got fair value at the time. Lookman basically had 12 months as a first team player here. In that time he scored 7 goals according to FotMob stats. Everton are said to have paid £7,5m up front with addons taking the fee to £11m. According to a detailed answer from Claude AI Everton’s revenues have risen 54% from that season to the 23/24 season. Everton of course are an under-achiever in the FAPL, and the bigger clubs have seen revenue rise by far more, due to big increases from European competitions. So that gives you a conservative benchmark of what Mbick might be worth if he stays with us a full season: £12m plus add-ons. 

This of course will trigger people saying that Mbick isn’t as good as Lookman, etc. However they may first want to remind themselves what people on here wrote about Lookman at various stages during his 12 months in the squad.

Lookman played for us in the Championship and then half a season in league one, so that's not really comparable to Mbick.

It is a - conservative- benchmark for his value if he stays with us next season and performs as well as Lookman did. 

It’s conservative because the revenues of the Big 6 have moved up far more than the rest, and revenues of European clubs have also generally greatly improved, (France being an exception when you take Plastic Saint-Germain out of the analysis). All of this inflation filters down the English pyramid. However revenues in the Championship have not gone up to match this inflation, due to us surrendering control of TV money to FAPL club owners since 1991. That is why the Championship is rated by club finance directors as the biggest financial basket case of the lot. You have to pay £2m or more for strikers who cannot manage to score more than 3 goals by February. And that is why it does my head in that we are prepared to let young talent go at the first whiff of money.

All that said, he hasn’t gone. Maybe I have once again under-estimated Big Jim. I hope so. I also hope he doesnt read CL, since I would very much like to see Mbick scoring in front of the Covered End. Is that really such a big ask? 

You're making a completely unrelated point.

Every single one of us knows that if he stays with us and does well in the Championship then his value will skyrocket. 

The debate is about whether the club cashes in BEFORE that happens. Because there is a chance it may not happen and then we never get a 5m bid ever again. 

Pretty sure there were similar debates on here post-Burstow when Leaburn came onto the scene. What would we do if we got an offer? Keep him and he'll be worth 10m+ soon etc. Three seasons on from his debut season there haven't been any offers.

How do you know this? I thought i read somewhere that we had fended off interest a while back.

Bids are often made public if one of the parties involved is promoting dark arts to force a move through.

I heard that the club had turned down bids for Leaburn and TC in the past.

Henry Irving

TellyTubby said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

fenaddick said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

Far too early to see with these owners if it is a business model or not. They’ve rejected offers for players before, it just doesn’t he spoken about. They aren’t selling at the first offer like TS. He might not even be gone. I’d save your anger until it’s confirmed and we have a vague idea of the fee 

i’m talking about the business model as many fans think it is. Its not the model pursued by Sunderland (post Methven) or Ipswich to get them promoted from this division. People talk about “investing” the fee in supposedly more  seasoned players. They forget that such players also come with seasoned salary demands. And then there is the Academy itself. M’bick is easily the most promising product through there since Lookman. If we give him away now for £5m -or probably less - you cant say the Academy earns its keep, if you then blow the money on a
modestly talented Championship player, which is all we’d get if you amortise the salary on top of say a £3m fee. And as for the line about no guarantees that he will fulfil his promise; there were no guarantees with Olaofe, Apter, or Kelman either. Yet very few minded that we were paying sizeable  transfer fees to bring them in. Pity nobody insisted on a money-back guarantee for them!

I'd argue that 5m for a kid who's never scored above league two level is not 'giving him away'.

Are there many other examples of fees that high for players who've only scored at that level?

On the surface that’s a reasonable question, but IMO too crude a way to value a player. If you take Lookman, the one player for whom we got fair value at the time. Lookman basically had 12 months as a first team player here. In that time he scored 7 goals according to FotMob stats. Everton are said to have paid £7,5m up front with addons taking the fee to £11m. According to a detailed answer from Claude AI Everton’s revenues have risen 54% from that season to the 23/24 season. Everton of course are an under-achiever in the FAPL, and the bigger clubs have seen revenue rise by far more, due to big increases from European competitions. So that gives you a conservative benchmark of what Mbick might be worth if he stays with us a full season: £12m plus add-ons. 

This of course will trigger people saying that Mbick isn’t as good as Lookman, etc. However they may first want to remind themselves what people on here wrote about Lookman at various stages during his 12 months in the squad.

Lookman played for us in the Championship and then half a season in league one, so that's not really comparable to Mbick.

It is a - conservative- benchmark for his value if he stays with us next season and performs as well as Lookman did. 

It’s conservative because the revenues of the Big 6 have moved up far more than the rest, and revenues of European clubs have also generally greatly improved, (France being an exception when you take Plastic Saint-Germain out of the analysis). All of this inflation filters down the English pyramid. However revenues in the Championship have not gone up to match this inflation, due to us surrendering control of TV money to FAPL club owners since 1991. That is why the Championship is rated by club finance directors as the biggest financial basket case of the lot. You have to pay £2m or more for strikers who cannot manage to score more than 3 goals by February. And that is why it does my head in that we are prepared to let young talent go at the first whiff of money.

All that said, he hasn’t gone. Maybe I have once again under-estimated Big Jim. I hope so. I also hope he doesnt read CL, since I would very much like to see Mbick scoring in front of the Covered End. Is that really such a big ask? 

You're making a completely unrelated point.

Every single one of us knows that if he stays with us and does well in the Championship then his value will skyrocket. 

The debate is about whether the club cashes in BEFORE that happens. Because there is a chance it may not happen and then we never get a 5m bid ever again. 

Pretty sure there were similar debates on here post-Burstow when Leaburn came onto the scene. What would we do if we got an offer? Keep him and he'll be worth 10m+ soon etc. Three seasons on from his debut season there haven't been any offers.

How do you know this? I thought i read somewhere that we had fended off interest a while back.

Bids are often made public if one of the parties involved is promoting dark arts to force a move through.

There was definate interest from Germany

PragueAddick

CaptainRobbo said:

TellyTubby said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

Chris_from_Sidcup said:

PragueAddick said:

fenaddick said:

PragueAddick said:

WSS said:

You seem unusually very emotional about this Prague…

And no apologies for it. I thought we finally had serious owners, and maybe we do but they are listening to Rodwell. This is not the “business model” you and others think it is. With the exception of Lookman, it is the dismal pattern of our post FAPL demise: Gomez, Konsa, Shelvey all sold at least a season too soon and for no positive “business” result. I’m so sick of it.

Far too early to see with these owners if it is a business model or not. They’ve rejected offers for players before, it just doesn’t he spoken about. They aren’t selling at the first offer like TS. He might not even be gone. I’d save your anger until it’s confirmed and we have a vague idea of the fee 

i’m talking about the business model as many fans think it is. Its not the model pursued by Sunderland (post Methven) or Ipswich to get them promoted from this division. People talk about “investing” the fee in supposedly more  seasoned players. They forget that such players also come with seasoned salary demands. And then there is the Academy itself. M’bick is easily the most promising product through there since Lookman. If we give him away now for £5m -or probably less - you cant say the Academy earns its keep, if you then blow the money on a
modestly talented Championship player, which is all we’d get if you amortise the salary on top of say a £3m fee. And as for the line about no guarantees that he will fulfil his promise; there were no guarantees with Olaofe, Apter, or Kelman either. Yet very few minded that we were paying sizeable  transfer fees to bring them in. Pity nobody insisted on a money-back guarantee for them!

I'd argue that 5m for a kid who's never scored above league two level is not 'giving him away'.

Are there many other examples of fees that high for players who've only scored at that level?

On the surface that’s a reasonable question, but IMO too crude a way to value a player. If you take Lookman, the one player for whom we got fair value at the time. Lookman basically had 12 months as a first team player here. In that time he scored 7 goals according to FotMob stats. Everton are said to have paid £7,5m up front with addons taking the fee to £11m. According to a detailed answer from Claude AI Everton’s revenues have risen 54% from that season to the 23/24 season. Everton of course are an under-achiever in the FAPL, and the bigger clubs have seen revenue rise by far more, due to big increases from European competitions. So that gives you a conservative benchmark of what Mbick might be worth if he stays with us a full season: £12m plus add-ons. 

This of course will trigger people saying that Mbick isn’t as good as Lookman, etc. However they may first want to remind themselves what people on here wrote about Lookman at various stages during his 12 months in the squad.

Lookman played for us in the Championship and then half a season in league one, so that's not really comparable to Mbick.

It is a - conservative- benchmark for his value if he stays with us next season and performs as well as Lookman did. 

It’s conservative because the revenues of the Big 6 have moved up far more than the rest, and revenues of European clubs have also generally greatly improved, (France being an exception when you take Plastic Saint-Germain out of the analysis). All of this inflation filters down the English pyramid. However revenues in the Championship have not gone up to match this inflation, due to us surrendering control of TV money to FAPL club owners since 1991. That is why the Championship is rated by club finance directors as the biggest financial basket case of the lot. You have to pay £2m or more for strikers who cannot manage to score more than 3 goals by February. And that is why it does my head in that we are prepared to let young talent go at the first whiff of money.

All that said, he hasn’t gone. Maybe I have once again under-estimated Big Jim. I hope so. I also hope he doesnt read CL, since I would very much like to see Mbick scoring in front of the Covered End. Is that really such a big ask? 

You're making a completely unrelated point.

Every single one of us knows that if he stays with us and does well in the Championship then his value will skyrocket. 

The debate is about whether the club cashes in BEFORE that happens. Because there is a chance it may not happen and then we never get a 5m bid ever again. 

Pretty sure there were similar debates on here post-Burstow when Leaburn came onto the scene. What would we do if we got an offer? Keep him and he'll be worth 10m+ soon etc. Three seasons on from his debut season there haven't been any offers.

How do you know this? I thought i read somewhere that we had fended off interest a while back.

Bids are often made public if one of the parties involved is promoting dark arts to force a move through.

I heard that the club had turned down bids for Leaburn and TC in the past.

Yes and in Miles case, before he was injured by a pub team centre back because we thought it a good idea to keep playing the local pub team pre-season. As a result half of CL decided he is “injury- prone”.