I remember thinking at the time if Pritchard had signed we would have let Stephens go to Burnley. As people said at the time they are not the same type of midfielder and I agree. My argument was that we wanted him, the fee would have been covered for FFP and the numbers in the squad would have stayed the same.
We were faced with a player who really wanted away and presumably a player who wanted to come here. Funny how it turned out as Stephens knuckled down to become a vital player and Pritchard spent most of the season on the bench.
The chairman played a blinder imo. I said at the time he was faced with accepting 8 million for a player or gambling on keeping him and reaching the promised land letting that player walk away on a free in the process. I guess we can all see why the man is a gambling genius!
Pritchard was always the replacement/competition for Baldock. We still doged a bullet - but it would not have meant Stephens moving on.
OK I don't agree but we are all entitled to our opinion. He is a midfielder so I saw him as a Stephens replacement with the fees matching up. Not a direct one for one obviously but it was early days and we were balancing the books, to a certain extent. If it had gone through there may have been others in the pipeline, who knows. There are more leaks from the Kremlin than Brighton and Hove Albion which, personally, I love. Doesn't stop us speculating.
He is - but so far and away from the sort of player who can play in a midfield two it's not even remotely likely. We said in the press we were after competition in the Baldock role and the search would continue after Pritchard shafted us. Thankfully we didn't get anyone given the season Baldock had. We certainly weren't in a balancing books mood this summer given the massive amount of bids we turned down for our key players.
You do know how much we lost last season, don’t you? None of this is simple. If things had turned out differently we may not have played with a midfield two.
Agree we were looking for competition/replacement for Sam but nobody knew how that would turn out as you say. Remember when Tomar and Glenn first played together? We all said that was not going to work! Well it didn’t turn out too badly, as it happens.
Yes TB turned down massive bids for our best players and made it very clear to everybody that we going “All in” in poker terms. Who would bet against him? LOL.
Cam we go old school please like when Jim Gannon came down with Stockport and we didn't want him as our manager?
Surely a bit of 'Where'd you get your boots from? POUND SHOP, POUND SHOP' etc. would be a nice one for the oldies?
He did have a nice shiny suit though [emoji38]ol:Cam we go old school please like when Jim Gannon came down with Stockport and we didn't want him as our manager?
Surely a bit of 'Where'd you get your boots from? POUND SHOP, POUND SHOP' etc. would be a nice one for the oldies?