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

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

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 .

He's a fellow Trinity supporter.

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

My Point still stands though