Outgoing Transfers

The piece of paper John had been banking on to bolster his transfer funds was lying on the table. John kept looking at it with a frown on his face.

"What is it?" Michael asked.

"Look at it yourself" John said while passing the paper to Michael.

Michael looked at it. It was a simple document with names of players, their position, name of the club they were joining and transfer fee.

Darren Kenton, CB, to League 1 side Leeds United for 10,000 pounds.

Rab Douglas, GK, to Scottish Premier League team Hearts on a free transfer.

Andy Johnson, MF, to Championship side Barnsley for 10,000 pounds.

Nils-Eric Johansson, CB, to Swedish side AIK(Allmänna Idrottsklubben) for 10,000 pounds.

Elvis Hammond, FW, to League one club Cheltenham town for 20,000 pounds.

Alan Sheehan, LB, to Leeds United on a free transfer.

Matty Fryatt, FW, to Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers for 2 million pounds.

"Oh!" Michael managed to say, looking deflated.

"Yeah" John replied.

"What happened?" John asked to Sean.

John knew that Leicester's squad wasn't worth much after the disastrous performance of the last season and alongwith his desire to complete the transfers before 17th June, other teams would drive the price down, but he wasn't expecting it to this extent. Except Matty Fryatt whom Wolves were chasing furiously, the transfer fee Leicester got for other players was only 50,000 pounds.

John didn't have very high expectations but he still hoped to raise atleast 500,000 pounds from selling players outside of Fryatt. There were still one or two transfers left but looking at this John didn't think they would reach even six figures let alone 500,000.

John knew that Sean must've tried his best, but John had to know the cause of the low fee.

"Demand" Sean said, "There was no demand for our players."

"Let alone other Championship teams, even League one teams weren't that interested in our second string players, the ones we are trying to sell."

Sean continued, "That's why I had to search outside England too to sell our players."

"Except Matty Fryatt, no one on the transfer list you gave me was very appealing to other clubs. For some players I had to make calls myself and sell them to other clubs to get the job done."

"There really is no demand for our players?" John said in a questioning tone.

"Its not that there is no demand, there are a lot of offers for Hume, Kisnorbo, McCarthy and other starters, its that the players we decided to sell weren't very popular, couple that with the time limit we had set, and the fee we got was not as high." Sean explained.

John finally took a sigh and relaxed. There was no point in moaning about it, as it wasn't going to change anything but John took a pledge in his mind that he will fleece the other clubs when he got the chance.

"Well, we have an additional amount of 2 million pounds to use for transfer. That takes our total to 6 million pounds we can spend." John said.

6 million pounds was a lot of money for a Championship side, but it was going to be tight if they wanted to sign a Premier league caliber holding midfielder in his prime and a backup center back . An average Premier league player was getting a salary of 1,000,000 pounds and if they wanted such a player, they will have to pay approx. 2-3 million dollars in transfer fee, at the very least.

In addition, they had to take care of the increasing wage bill as well because while they were bringing in starting caliber players with wages to show for it, the players Leicester was selling were fringe players and the wage bill cleared by selling them wasn't enough to accomodate new players.

They had to plan for player and coach bonuses as well, so some money will have to be saved.

So, they had to adjust their transfer budget accordingly to fit the wages of the player they will be bringing in as well.

"We have to include the player's wages in the transfer budget too, but I'm sure we can find someone suitable." John said, "Well, who's the third player?"

"Ivan Campo" Michael stated.

This caused John to raise his eyebrows in surprise. It wasn't that Campo wasn't a good player, but he was too good for Leicester and with his status as a Bolton legend, it will be almost impossible to lure him away to Leicester.

"He is the player that fits our needs perfectly. Converted to a defensive midfielder from Centre back position, he is a hard tackling midfielder who is calm on the ball and can string together passes from the midfield. Although he is already 33 he is still capable of playing regularly and doesn't have a terrible injury record." Michael continued.

"Yeah, but can we sign him?" John asked.

"It's going to be very very difficult but we have a chance to sign him. It would have been next to impossible before but Bolton's manager Sam Allardyce has just left the club which leaves an opening. He is already 33 so it wouldn't be that difficult to convince the club to let him go, the problem is to convince the player to swap Premier league for Championship." Michael explained.

"We might have to overpay for him but it is possible to sign him." Michael finished.

"What do you think?" John asked Simeone.

"Well, I'll need to watch these players before deciding whether to sign them or not." Simeone replied.

"That's fine, we still have some time." John said, "Michael, in the meantime, look at some more players that we could sign for the upcoming season."

"Well, a center back isn't absolutely essential as we already have Mccarthy, Kisnorbo, Bonucci and Benatia, four players capable of playing at the center back, so it's fine even if we don't get a center back, but a quality holding midfielder is absolutely essential." Simeone said.

John looked at Simeone with surprise, because he wasn't expecting him to say that. He was really thankful for that though as it took off pressure from their shoulders. Now they could look for a holding midfielder they wanted with the intent of throwing the purse at him to get his signature.

Michael also smiled as John looked at him and nodded.

Michael and Simeone took their leave as John slumped back on his chair.

"I'm exhausted" John said.

"Are you tired already?" Sean said with a warm smile on his face.

"I thought being a boss would be easy, we have someone for every job that needs to be done, but I still have to work so much." John said.

"Well, it was your idea to do this. You could have lived a laid back life but you chose this." Sean said in a matter of fact voice.

"Yeah, I know but can't I whine a little?" John said to Sean.

"You can but only after the job is done. We still have work to do." Sean replied.