Vaz Te out, Stephen Dawson in.

I have been reading around a few boards and it seems to me that fans are split over this decision. The two sides of the coin seem to be;

1) "We got him for nothing so we wont lose anything by letting him go for a free in the summer, so we should keep him as we need his goals."

2) "If he is set to leave anyway we may as well fill our coffers a little. Plus if he doesn't appreciate that Filcroft have helped revive his career and his head is off elsewhere do we still want him/will he still be as affective?"

Both are very valid points and the logic behind them is sound. I myself was in two mind over this issue until you add Stephen Dawson and the soon to be implemented fiscal "break even rule" to the equation.

I'm going to make an assumptions here based on what I have read in a few articles.
* We have sold Vaz Te for a few more mars bars than we spent on Dawson.
* Dawson’s transfer fee is a 6 figure sum.

At the start of the season we spent 2/5th's of F-all, Hill brought in a lad for FREE got 12 goals out of him in half a season, sold him on and uses the money to buy a replacement that we couldn't afford at the beginning of the season AND walked away with a profit. Yes, granted not a direct replacement in terms of position, I'm talking about the squad as a whole. That for me is some very sound business and given the cards we had be dealt is a smart move.

We started the season and took a punt on Vaz Te, none of us really expected great things from him and though Hill saw his potential, I think even Keith didn't expect him progress so quickly. It’s very easy to look back with our good friend hindsight and ask why wasn't he offered a longer contract. That way we could have commanded a larger fee or kept him for longer and still have sold him when his contract was running low. But unless KH is good pals with Mystic Meg this would have been a huge gamble; at the time there were too many questions marks around Vaz Te. Hill has rolled with the punches on this one and made the best of the situation.

However having said all this Dawson may not settle into the side in which case I will eat my words, but from a purely business point of view we have created money from thin air and gotten a promising player who is tied down for a few years allowing us to keep building a settled squad of players that want to be here.

Up the reds!