Bidding wars and Overpayment

Morning everyone, and to those still out in Copenhagen/Malmo, hope you are all enjoying it!

I managed to watch the Brondby game on the stream and caught the highlights from yesterday and im suitably impressed so far. I know its too early to tell how we are going to fare this season but from what I have seen we seem to have come back fitter than this time last year. Particularly Craig Davies, who last summer looked like he had taken up a part time summer job at Greggs! Lets hope we don't pick up any injuries and start with a full squad.

Now that we have shipped out Baptiste, brought McNaughton back in and have Riley and Threlkeld as backup I think the only position we need to sort is the strikers (and maybe goalkeepers depending on whether a bid comes in for Bogdan). As it stands we only have Beckford and Davies as our senior strikers with Iliev, Eaves, Wilkinson and Clough in the Development squad, so we need at least one, if not 2 additional strikers in the mix and we all know who Dougie, and most fans, would like.

The issue, as always comes down to price and availability. Cardiff would ideally like a fee, around 1-1.5m for Mason, but may look to loan out if nothing comes and Boro want a bidding war to up the price for Juke to 1.5m+. Currently there has been little interest other than our own in Mason, but there has been a lot in Juke, who by all accounts is our primary target.

At the moment we seem to be sitting back and seeing how it pans out. Derby have ended their interest as have Wigan. Wolves and Blackburn could enter the mix but it seems as if Burnley are in the driving seat depending on which reports you believe.

On one hand I feel we are doing the sensible thing by not getting into a bidding war and seeing how close Burnley are going to get before making (or not) our move. If they too pull out then Boro may realise their asking price is too high and lower it allowing us to proceed or they decide to keep him.

On the other hand i'd like us to make a decision whether we are going to make a move or we are out and move on to other targets, because at the moment I don't see us scoring regularly enough with what we have.

The thing that frustrates me most is the perceived lack of other options. I can see Dougie's game, by not seemingly looking elsewhere we are showing Juke that he is the one we want and showing faith in him, but its a dangerous game to play.

I've mentioned a few times that I wish we would utilise the foreign market more. With the 500k from Sordell's sale and the amount saved on wages, surely we could pick up a striker from abroad who could do a good job for us? That was always Sams strength, finding untapped talent and giving them a platform to make a name for themselves. I'm not asking for a league of nations team like we had under Sam, just for Dougie to broaden his horizons a bit, you never know we could uncover another Gudjohnsen/Frandsen/Curcic