Harewood to sign?

Interesting news breaking this evening saying Marlon Harewood is due to make a return to Forest until the end of the season.

Steve Cotterill has turned to Harewood in the hope he can roll back the years, and get us a few goals - something we have lacked badly in recent weeks.

Now all Forest fan knows what Marlon is capable of and he requires no introduction. Whether it proves to be an inspired move is another matter, especially since the return of Andy Reid has hardly been a success.

The most interesting thing for me is where the funds have come from to fund Harewood?

If you listened to Radio Nottingham post match yesterday, you would have heard Robin Chipperfield say an unknown source is funding the extension of Greg Cunningham's loan.

I'd like to dream a new investor is just around the corner, but let's not jump the gun just yet - questions for another article.

As for Harewood, good luck to him if it materialises.

Follow me on twitter @benando_torres

Transfer Policy Myth

Mr Geo Challenge once again takes on the controversial issues. In this piece he attempts to explode the myth about our transfer policy


On the transfer page I suggested a view that, despite what many of our fans think, Forest's transfer policy isn't really as shoddy as everyone makes out. I intend to show that Forest do actually spend alot of money in the circumstances.

What circumstances do I refer to? If you look at the wider picture of transfer spending in this country, it's clear to anyone with a brain that fees are spiralling out of control. Just about every club in the country are millions and millions of pounds in debt, and many are gambling with their future in the hope of spending their way to success and security - especially at our level. Do any of you want Forest to gamble? Money spent does not equal success.

Another consideration before I look at what money we've actually spent over the past few years:

“UEFA’s financial fair play policy is going to be coming in in two years’ time under a ‘soft rule’ before sanctions will apply in 3 years’ time. We as a club have to get ourselves ready for that.” Mark Arthur 2011

Do you want Forest to plan for the future, or do you want Forest to face up to this important rule change suddenly in two short years time?

I suggest Forest are not a big enough club to spend blindly in the current climate. Anyone who thinks we're too big to go out of business are living in cloud cuckoo land. We are operating at significant losses at he moment, only saved with the support of ND. Now, onto our transfer incomings. I know I've missed one or two, please point out this, or any other errors.

2007
Chambers - Undisclosed.
Cohen & Davies - £1,200,000
Earnshaw - £2,650,000
Wilson - £300,000
Lennon - Free.
£4,100,000 (plus whatever we paid for Luke Chambers, plus signing on fees, which I'd suggest would be substantial for high profile players such as Earnshaw, and Lennon, who to make it even higher, was on a FT. I'd speculate we spent in excess of five million on transfers that year, but don't know).

2008
G-Mac - £30,000
Moussi - £300,000
Garner £1,140,000
Cole - Free
Martin - Loan
Total - £1,470,000 (plus whatever we paid for Moussi & G-Mac, plus signing on and loan fees. Again, Cole didn't come here for peanuts, but I wouldn't even like to guess how much we paid him).

2009
Blackstock - Undisclosed "seven figure amount". For the sake of arguement, £1,000,000
Camp - £100,000
Anderson - £250,000
McGoldrick £1,000,000
McKenna - £750,000
Adebola - Free
Gunter - £1,750,000
Lynch - £200,000
Majewski - £1,000,000
Shorey - Loan
McSheffrey - Loan
Total - £6,050,000 (plus signing on fees, plus loan fees & wages, add into account I've been super cautious with Blackstock's fee. I wouldn't be surprised were out transfer spending not nearer the seven million bracket).

2010
Tudgay - £500,000
Findley - Free
Bertrand - Loan
G. Boyd - Loan
Ramsey - Loan
Total - £500,000 (plus signing on fees & loan fees/wages).

2011
Reidy - Free
Greening - Undisclosed, believed to be £600,000.
K. Boyd - Loan
Konchesky - Loan
Total - possibly £600,000 (plus signing on fees, loan fees & wages).

Total over the last 5 years:
Transfer fees - £12,740,000 on fees (conservative estimate).
Signing on fees - Dread to think, but we've had some top profile players here. Cole, Lennon & Reid would have been expensive, unless they came here for the love of Forest?
Loan fees - We've relied heavily on a series of high profile, big name loanees such as former England men Shorey, Konchesky, s well as Bertrand, Ramsey, Boyd et al. Alot of our loans have been from Premiership clubs, there would have been fees involved, as well as us paying some or all of their wages. Not cheap at all.

Analysis: Over the past 5 years we have spend an average of £2,500,000 per year on transfer fees (conservative estimate). For a top club this is a pittance. For a slightly above average second division team, I'd suggest this is quite a heavy outlay when coupled with the signing on fees, loan fees, wages of our squad and the loanees, the fact we don't sell our best players, and the recent multi-million pound re-build of our Wilford Lane training facility. Forest are clearly frugal with their money, but in times like these who can blame them? It's all very well us fans spending the money for them in our heads, but we don't have to deal with the consequences in our heads. Spending money, just like in real life, has consequences.

Michael123 inadvertently hit the crux of this issue on the transfer thread, stating "which for a club of our size when our rivals are spending so much more" when referring to our apparently small spending. The issue is twofold:

"club of our size"... we are not a big club, history has proven we are now at our true level. We don't have enough fans to propel us into Europe any more, our major successes in the past have been down to one genius manager and will never be repeated I'm afraid.

"our rivals are spending so much" because they have rich sugar daddies using them as a plaything, and when they get bored they may well drop their toy (in the $hit) and go elsewhere. We cannot hope to compete with the spending of Leicester & Cardiff et al. They are recklessly gambling with their clubs future, I'm glad Forest don't - I don't want the slightest chance of Forest going bankrupt. I go to most games - I don't want to find myself stood on a rainy tuesday evening watching a bankrupt Forest team playing Stalybidge Celtic, whilst ground sharing with Ilkeston town or some other local team. I'm glad we look after our future. Some of our fans seem to think we ought to be spending big and challenging for European honours once again - the Stalybridge Celtic scenario is far more likely.

We are running at a loss, yet still spending well over £2.5 million per year on transfers alone. How many other clubs in our position are doing this? I've not checked this out, but I don't think there are many.

Counter-arguements welcome & please point out any errors, not in it to win an argument, in it to get to the bottom of this very subjective issue. Data taken from Soccerbase & Wikipedia, and this site.
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Panic Stations? Not At All

There is this underlying chorus of Forest fans on various forums, facebook and twitter who would have you believe that the club is on the brink of a crisis. Scare mongering, rumour manufacturing and bad Chinese whispers has all sorts of melodramatic types deciding to write off this season already, decry the board and even in some parts make out that the manager is about to walk out.

It is all laughable.

I know what people will say "oh but look at the money Leicester are spending!!" Oh but I have noticed, they are OVER spending in my minds eye. Spending too much money on players. Oh it might work and I'll kind of be proven wrong, but look at that sentence again. Might. Not a big word, but has big connotations. You see Leicester are potentially mortgaging the future of the club on this campaign. Yeah they have deep pockets over there now, but only as long as those pockets are full. If they don't go up, that's £x million spent that won't be made back. And that can only go on for so long.

I agree with the masses I would like more signings. But not so much when it's for the sake of it, or when we have to spend double the market value, just because other clubs know Leicester, or one of the other big spenders (I assume will be West Ham, Birmingham etc) are sniffing round. Of course Bristol City will demand double what Maynard is worth, I can't blame them, but equally I don't want the club to spend for the sake of spending. There are other players out there in the world. It just might take time finding,negotiating, finalising these deals

Routledge is a fine example of what keeps happening. He knows we want him, but he also knows that other clubs will probably want him, so he bides his time to see what offers are on the table. It's financial sense, and something we would all do. If he goes to a club paying more, people will brand him a money grabber unfairly, because, as I say,everyone of us would do exactly the same.

There's talk of protests, this makes me laugh. What really do they expect to achieve? They think Mark Arthur and Nigel Doughty will be cowering under their desk, scrambling to get on the phone, to make signings to appease an angry pitch-fork wielding mob? Of course not, And said mob will contain the usual crowd of people who just want to shout about anything. I saw people talk of doing it when the Open Day is on, Yeah lets expose young kids to that kind of vitriol. Morons. Pathetic morons.

There is this whole idea that the club "owe us answers" I'm not sure why people think this. You weren't held at gun point to buy that season ticket,they didn't force you to buy one. I too have spent a large cash of meagre savings on a season ticket.But I am not angrily tweeting the official Forest twitter account,(which by the way is frankly stupid, as if the powers that be even read that,it's just some poor guy updating that and facebook, not someone who matters in the grand scheme)There was no binding contract when you bought a season ticket saying we will tell you everything you need to know. I see Free Forest have reared their heads again. A campaign based on dodgy maths manipulated to prove a false point.

The truth is, yes deals are taking slower than we would hope. But the season starts in August,not July, there is more than enough time to bring in the right people. We don't need to go and hurl cash here. The general public seem to want to hurl blame at someone, and the board is always a very easy target. Why are we focusing on assistant managers when we should be on players? Well assistants are often as vital. Look at Chelsea when Wilkins left, Man Utd after Kidd left were a little flustered for a few years. A good assistant is worth three players. Hell look at the history of our club. Clough and Taylor, need I say more?

It is almost as if people think they are deliberately trying to run the club down. That Mark Arthur and Nigel Doughty have a mission in life to ruin all of our days by not doing as we request. Of course they want success, but they also want to see the club survive. They also want to get value for money, because if we did splash the cash and it all flopped, those same fans demanding money be spent,would then turn around and the board were idiots for spending too much. It's a no win situation.Damned if you, damned if you don't

I can't help thinking this all stems from the Evening Posts drawn out raison d'etre of creating anger and distrust to sell papers. Again they lead with something similar alluding to distrust and discord. This isn't based on inherent truths,but more the fact they need to sell papers. A News of the World-esque sting no, but it is all designed to get you to spend money on that paper. Or go on the site to get advertising revenue.

As a popular poster says. Keep Calm And Carry On

End of Transfer Window Summary

So the window has finally slammed shut on a day that has seen some clubs pay absolutely ridiculous money for certain players - we all know which one in particular I mean.

From a Forest perspective, none of the rumours for players like Martyn Woolford and Gabriel Obertan came to fruition and we end the window with three fantastic signings in Paul Konchesky, Marcus Tudgay and Robbie Findley.

Outgoings have seen Matt Thornhill join Hibernian on a free and Joe Garner sign for Scunthorpe on a loan deal until the end of the season.

To conclude, I'm absolutely delighted with the business we've done in this transfer window. With promotion rivals like QPR and Cardiff all strengthening, it's refreshing to see we're following suit and are definitely prepared to go for one big final push between now and May - which could be argued was our downfall last season.

The likes of Konchesky and Tudgay will offer a wealth of Premiership and Championship experience, respectively, to our relatively young team. In Tudgay's case, he's already showing the impact he can bring to our team with his incredible contribution to games so far. Konchesky on the other hand, can be considered the final piece of our left hand side problems. His excellent attacking and strength attributes will hopefully make him the best left back in the league - and make our defence completely watertight.

As for Findley, he has it all to do but with the guidance of Davies - there is no reason why he won't succeed. The pacey striker and winger needs to adapt to the more competitive and fast nature of the Championship inside his first few months, as well as settle down to life in Nottingham. He could be a slow burner like Stern John originally was or make an immediate impact like Ben Olson did. Either way, I'm sure he is in for a successful time at Forest and we all wish him and every other newcomer a warm City Ground welcome.

As for Thornhill and Garner, their moves are definitely best for both parties.

Thornhill had always had that bit of promise about him but with Raddy, McGugan, Cohen, Moussi and McKenna all in front of him, a serious injury crisis would have been needed for him to make his big breakthrough. He now get's the chance to link up again with Colin Calderwood, who thought very highly of him at the City Ground.

Garner's short term departure to Scunny presents Joe with the chance to prove Forest and any potential suitors that is good enough for this league - especially after his disappointing loan spell at Huddersfield.

We both Joe and Matt all the best.

Some breaking news from an Obertan perspective. Reports are suggesting he has handed in a transfer request at Old Trafford - which has unsurprisingly stunned the club. It is rumoured he is looking for a move back home to France in the Summer - could a loan move to Forest be a short term fix?

But all in all, a highly successful transfer window and excellent work from both Billy and the transfer panel. Dare I say we have a squad that could maybe get us over the finishing line in May.

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