Its not position more about timing. Our players were up for sale when other clubs were out there actively recruiting. Hence players like Amor created a bit of a feeding frenzy and we were able to bid up a good price. The bully Boys have missed the boat and its now a buyers market.

I think this has almost everything to do with it, it seems to be a matter of timing.

Agreed the timing was better, but equally we could've got shafted given the openness of our financial issues yet still got a decent amount for the four players sold.

Its not just about transfer fees as such, we have debt yes, and any transfer fee would be great, but its more about making savings of 400k over the next 12 months to balance the books. Which is more about the wage bill. The debt can be managed as long is its not increasing and is reducing. So high earners are free to talk to anyone, and Sammut is apparently one of our high earners that I suspect the club would move on as we have Gale and Gaskill (at the moment!). It is a buyers market but we just need to reduce costs.

Im undecided if he'd be right for you though, he'd still be expensive in wages even if you got him for no or minimal transfer fee, and he'd go missing in a fair few games...but, he'd win you a couple by himself when in some games hes just unplayable. And if the aim is to just not be in the bottom 2 next season then the few games he either wins by himself or does show up in might be the difference between say 13th and 10th? On balance I'd say hes not the player you guys need, but he'd be fun to watch if you did get him.

IMO much of it came down to that we were selling when people were looking at buying, also we had some quality players that other clubs would have liked and thus a market and that (given the timing) clubs could factor into their squad building costs.
Now most clubs are pretty much spent up is there the money available to spend on Bradfords better players.
One thing that could help the Bulls (and us) would be if clubs who do covet some of the Bulls players especially were to free up space in the caps by loaning out some of their existing players??

This is the bit that people dont always get; the difference between shortfall and debt.
Undoubtebly some of the Bulls woes will be from debt, i think it said so in an article i read yesterday, but the rest (and i would guess its a sizeable chunk) is shortfall of invome vs outgoings (wages in the main) over ?? period.
The worrying thing for me would be that this is coming at a time where income should start to come in (i.e new kits, ST sales, matchay income is only a couple of months away) where as our shortfall was at least at a period when our income was dried up - the off season.
Another thing to factor in is the sky money, we have offset some of our future stability against this, where as i think the bulls are still minus this, this season. Not sure if that is a problem or a reason for a problem.

I think I agree on all counts.
He'd be great to watch, and I've always rated him but I just think we'll get better value from a steady scrum half who can control a game, rather than the flashy player who can do it on his own.
When you already have the steady player, someone like Sammut is worth their weight in goal but we are not there yet.

Best case to me? Salford or Hull take him and offload Fages or Horne to us.

Exactly, and the half sky money is both a problem and part of the reason for the problem, but ultimately the owners knew the budgets and got them wrong. The hamsting of the sky money, whilst a pain was (and is)a known parameter. They had unrealistic expectations for income vs expenditure. Even in the last round of recruitment that the previous owners have just signed off, yes we've got some good players in needed positions, but given the situation couldn't we have signed some championship level players instead of Carvell and George? From the fans forum its clear as day the new guys appear more clued up financially than the last two sets of owners (not difficult with 20:20 hindsight), so we'll see.



Id agree with that, with a 6 figure sum from the good Dr

Id guess that if they were not aware of a shortfall of this size they maybe aren't as clued up one might hope.
They've had the books, done their due dilligence and rushed the rfl to get them through the fit and proper test, maybe a bit too hastily?

Possibly so, but one of the problems has been, alledgedly, that the "books" and forecasts were different depending on who was asking, and things have fallen out of the cupboards as late as last Friday.

Again that sounds too familiar

Sammuit, a decent extra pivot player but way over rated. As suggested he's an occasional match winner but he's not the game maker which we need - he's a one man band.

I wondered how long it would take for the vultures to start circling, just surprised it's on here







Oh the irony

.

Give over.

Yes we know how awful it is to be in that situation as we have been there twice in the last 5 years, and lost large parts of our squad due to `Vultures`. Seems like the last mess you was in you didnt lose a single body!

Why should we be the nice guys in all of this? Business is business and we would be stupid to sit back and watch other clubs do the dealings just because we `Understand` your situation.

He's a fellow Trinity supporter.

Ah yes, apologies I had just assumed he was a bulls fan.

My Point still stands though

sammut is not a bad player, but i would class him as a luxury player

if we had the money to have him sat on the bench to come on as a game changer (like we did with wood) then i would say yes, but we don't so i say no.

we need someone to move us around the park, and organise the team.

I just find it rather distasteful when supporters speculate on which part of the carcase they would like to pick.

The only place I would expect to see it is on the Nut job forum, the views of certain fans are uncannily similar

.

Anyhow, just to play along, Sammut is not the type of player we need, a general who moves the team around the pitch he ain’t

Well if HKR and Salford + Saints hadn't helped "pick us over" we'd be in a pickle.

I get the point made though its not what we want to see or read.

I don't think that we have been "picked over" this time around, in fact, the sale of Amor, Smith and Aiton etc could prove to be a canny bit of business, especially as we have needed some additional income and also needed to reduce our wage bill.
However, we were certainly picked over when we were in admin a couple of years back with Ferguson going very cheap and Smurph going free at the end of his contract.

Thats kinda what i meant

Am all out of sentiment. Wakefield has always been at the mercy of other clubs when It comes to poaching players.

think we need a reality check, here until the ST starts climbing why would we put our selves in massive debt to bring in a player that hasn't been in the top eight teams of super league



time to stop bigging our selves up as a top 8 side and roll the bloody sleaves up and start as under dogs as usual

You tell em Snowie.

Smurph refused to leave under admin! Stayed with us for his contract length and was loyal! Administrator told him he was being sold he went in and said no ! The lad stayed loyal to us because we gave him the chance! I wish all the best to smurph!