With Monday’s Championship kick-off against Hull City drawing ever closer, despite our takeover and manager Steve Bruce confirming he’s now active in the market as he looks to strengthen us after the mess we faced over the summer, there is still a Financial Fair Play hole to consider and adding players to the group will not help that.
Vital Villan TonyJ thinks that our plan is to ultimately sell Jack Grealish still to solve that problem and he’s anticipating a busy transfer deadline day with continuing speculation surrounding Tottenham Hotspur and now Chelsea coming into the mix.
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Writer: TonyJ
Despite some tactical rethinking on our part and possible intervention by Chelsea, I think the plan is to sell Jack Grealish. Whether Steve Bruce is fully in on the plan, I am not too sure.
Although no one should doubt floppy Jack’s ability, some of the figures being suggested for his signature are daft. If he was in such demand, more clubs would have had a nibble by now.
Perhaps, only James Maddison, who moved recently, compares loosely to our man. What Maddison racks up with better goal and assist ratios, Grealish perhaps counters with his longer presence at a higher level in the game, including his greater international exposure at Under 23 and younger (Eire) and his excellent technique. Leicester picked up their man for a reported £24M, so I think that is really around the benchmark position, perhaps a bit more.
Obviously, another suitor to join Spurs in the bidding should raise the sale price, but I fancy only to around the figure mentioned above. He will be unlikely to affect the first team league performances for either Spurs or Chelsea this season, being more likely a appear in early cup rounds, should he move on.
The sweetener of a loan deal for Tammy Abraham might be an option, should Chelsea really be at the show.
Whatever the price, his sale will be the best means to cut the FFP deficit, sad though it may be.
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Unless we have some real left-field thinking from the new owners, sales of some kind are the only way to plug the hole that exists and Grealish remains our best opportunity to do that in one foul swoop. We can however, wait until the January window where his price will rise if he performs as he did last season, and he’s showed signs of that during pre-season at least. The downside there is his price will fall as potential suitors will know the pressure increases on us to deal.
Undoubtedly Bruce wants Jack to stay, he values him and he’s proven that by effectively wanting to build the side around him in the attacking support role and he came to the fore when fit last year and showed exactly what he was capable of and plenty are expecting improvement this year. But this isn’t going to be Bruce’s decision ultimately.
Whatever way we pivot, if Jack is sold it has to kill the FFP worries otherwise we only lose out.
