Bale Out and Other Summer Transfers

[Diable Rouge]

Ah, indeed as I was posting that Charlton confirmed Taylor's signing.

Certainly seems the wiser move, given the comparative renaissance at the Valley.

[andrew7610]

Mark Hughes begins to shape his own squad by showing one of Southampton's very few creative players the door as Dusan Tadic heads for Ajax.
I would have thought Soufiane Boufal would have been first one out, but its only a matter of time I guess.

[Eggchaser]

Fabianksi leaves Swansea for West Ham, farewell and good luck to our best player during his time at the club.

Quite pleased with that.

We're sniffing around Wilshere. Whilst he's clearly not as good as he thinks he is, if (IF) he could stay fit he'd be a decent signing.

[Ray de Galles]

He did very well for Bournemouth who are the kind of club West Ham should be seeking to emulate.

[Ek weet nie]

29 games, no goals and 2 assists for Bournemouth. I know statistics can be unreliable but I wouldn't be getting too excited by that.

[Ray de Galles]

I’ll admit I’m going on the opinion of the Bournemouth season ticket holder at work but I also thought there was a general feeling that the loan was a mutual success.

Plus, all I really wanted to do to get a dig in about West Ham having to look upwards at Bournemouth.

[SouthdownRebel]

Funny, I had a conversation just earlier today about how Wilshere and West Ham seemed a perfect match, but not in a good way. A punt on an oft-injured former future world class player who has seriously lost his way but will still command big wages.

[longeared]

Richard O'Donnell has left Northampton and joined Bradford. Good signing for them, presume he's replacement for Colin Doyle.

[Patrick Thistle]

Jack Rodwell is leaving Sunderland at the end of the month according to Twitter

[RobW]

Sean Long and Ollie Palmer have left Lincoln for Cheltenham and Crawley respectively. Neither player was good enough to hold down a starting place, but have fond memories of Palmer's late goals this season. He won March's Player of the Month despite playing only about 30 minutes.

[Simon G]

Sean Long is our first right back in over a year, so it's nice to finally have one. Bit concerned by some of the comments I've seen from Lincoln fans elsewhere on his actual ability though.

[RobW]

Sean Long is our first right back in over a year, so it's nice to finally have one. Bit concerned by some of the comments I've seen from Lincoln fans elsewhere on his actual ability though.

He's alright, nothing special. He came in for Bradley Wood in our title year and was 'dependable' more than anything. Not rash, or overtly aggressive like Wood, but neither could he really deliver a good cross like Neal Eardley does for us now.

[Sean of the Shed]

Newcastle have picked up Ki Sung-yueng on a free from Swansea.

[Hot Orange]

Unremarkable injury-prone central defender Adam Webster has left Ipswich for Bristol City for an initial £3.5m.

Of more concern for Ipswich is the loss of 16-year-old Ben Knight, about whom the academy coaches have been raving for some time. He's been hoovered up by the Manchester City academy for £1m.

[Amor de Cosmos]

QPR sign Union Berlin CB Toni Leistner. This seems very positive for a bunch of reasons. 1) We need a CB, actually a couple. 2) He has an excellent rep in Bundesliga 2. 3) Several clubs have tried to get him in the past year — including Norwich — but chose to let his contract run down to consider his options. 4) He's best mates with ex-QPR striker Seb Polter who recommended us. 5) "I like to play football the hard way" Good... I think... Depending what he actually means by that!

[ursus arctos]

As someone who watches Union often, he should do a job for you.

[HORN]

Newcastle have picked up Ki Sung-yueng on a free from Swansea.

Ki and Shelvey in the same midfield? Newcastle doing all they can to ensure inconsistency, I see.

[hobbes]

Salah has signed a new 5 year deal with Liverpool. Doubles his money, no release clause.

[JM Footzee]

Terrible loans of our time - Luke Garbutt joined Everton from Leeds as recently-turned 18-year-old in summer 2011. He'd been capped at every England age-group. He has made a total of 12 Everton appearances (none since 2014-15) and today it has been announced he'll be embarking on his fifth loan, to Oxford in League One for the season. He'll turn 26 shortly after the close of 2018-19 season and is contracted until 2020. Just leave, for the love of God.

Chelsea have got eight players out already (including Baba Rahman, who started an 18-month loan in January). Among them is Lewis Baker, who joined Leeds for the season on Saturday. It's his sixth loan and fifth loan club. Another regular England youth cap, he was apparently impressive in two seasons at Vitesse Arnhem (2015-17), but barely played at Middlesbrough last season. He'll turn 24 in April and is contracted until 2022.

[Southport Zeb]

I'm guessing that whoever has the job of putting names on players shirts at the Arsenal clubshop will be unimpressed with them signing Sokratis Papastathopoulos

[Patrick Thistle]

What is it? A pound per letter.

Loadsamoney style wankers will have to get his shirt.

[Ray de Galles]

Predictably, he’ll have Sokratis on his shirt as he did at Dortmund ;

https://twitter.com/arsenal/status/1013838769332654080?s=21

[Simon G]

Terrible loans of our time - Luke Garbutt joined Everton from Leeds as recently-turned 18-year-old in summer 2011. He'd been capped at every England age-group. He has made a total of 12 Everton appearances (none since 2014-15) and today it has been announced he'll be embarking on his fifth loan, to Oxford in League One for the season. He'll turn 26 shortly after the close of 2018-19 season and is contracted until 2020. Just leave, for the love of God.

We had Garbutt on loan in the 11/12 season and he was absolutely brilliant for us. One of the best left-backs I've seen at Cheltenham. He was composed, good in the tackle, got up and down the pitch with ease, he also had a mean dead ball. When he went back to Everton in the summer of 2012 we, as Cheltenham fans, genuinely expected him to breakthrough at Everton. It's a shame to see he's stalled and just gone from loan to loan over the past 6 years. I could be wrong, but didn't he pick up a nasty injury at some point?

[Janik]

If he has been there for six years and his current deal lasts for two more, Everton presumably have offered, and he has accepted, at least one and possibly two new contracts.

It's the size of the contract that keeps players from moving on. That Premiership deal is going to pay for their retirement years. That's why you get situations like Michael Tonge (mostly not) at Stoke. Tonge signed a five year deal aged 25, i.e. covering what should have been his peak years. But it never worked out at Stoke, so instead he spent that time on a succession of loans at different Championship clubs. As he was almost never seen as a long term player for each side, he was always the easy choice to leave out, limiting his appearances; rather than a solid 1st choice central midfielder for a club at that level, which his ability was about right for and what he had been at Sheffield United prior to joining Stoke, he became a journeyman, someone who would do a solid professional job if required but also someone who you wouldn't put in the way of development of a potential asset for your club.

[JM Footzee]

He signed a new five-year deal in 2015, yeah. In 2014-15 he played in 4 league games and made 6 appearances in other competitions, turning 22 towards the end of the season. I suppose he thought at that point he had a chance, but he hasn't played for Everton since. I made a cursory search for injuries, some mention of them although I couldn't spot anything about a long-term one. He didn't play for anyone in 2017-18, but was making sporadic under-23 appearances for Everton according to Soccerway which suggests he wasn't crocked.

And absolutely agree about the contracts. I suppose once you get to a certain point you might consider it worth seeing it out, knowing you'll likely get a crap next permanent deal regardless of whether you spent another year on a decent wage or not. Depressing, though.