Frostie
Well-Known Member
No way of knowing the financial aspects of the deal unfortunately unless something is leaked out but I believe the structure of the deal was at least partly so we hadn't used up all our budget for the season.
On a related note, a lot of people are getting hung up on the reported fee of £750k but it's worth remembering this was only being quoted at the very start when Nixon first stated our interest & that was when he believed it would be an immediate, permanent transfer.
By doing the loan deal as we did it's possible the subsequent fee has reduced (less time on contract, we've been paying his salary for a year etc.) plus I wouldn't be at all surprised if we'd paid a small fee to secure the loan anyway.
I still really struggle to see the downside of this deal. He's already a good player (yes, he makes mistakes), he has huge scope for improvement & it's, at worst, a modest fee with a probable return on investment.
Look at some of the players being released by our competitors this last week or so that they've literally wasted millions on;
Diedhiou £5.3m to Bristol City - released on a free
Baldock/Aluko approx. £11m for both to be absolutely awful at Reading & then released for nothing.
Flick through some of the released lists, the return on investment by & large is horrendous.
We're not going to get it right every time (especially shopping at Aldi whilst most are at Waitrose) but generally we're doing the right things - trust the process.