OFFICIAL - Liam Trotter SIGNED (on loan with option to buy)

Just to clarify, the tweet I posted was to Iles from a Bolton fan on twitter, not from Iles.

Ah, I see..............

I take it all back.

Ye sorry, I could have been clearer and saved you the rant   

Don't worry, mate....you know I like a good rant. 

Today will see the rumour mill in full on mode. Doesn't mean anything but gives us an insight into Dougie scraping the barrel to try to find players willing to come to us.

This is an odd deal imo. He's out of contract in the summer anyway but we're going to pay for him then? if I might be blunt WHY are we loaning him at all? I understand his price is only about 400K so if we've agreed to pay that for him why not just pay it now, make him our player on a two or three year deal then sell him on if he doesn't work out for a profit however small it may be? Add to that the fact it's 400K less that the manager will have to work with in the summer and this makes no sense at all.

I could understand us wanting to buy him now for a nominal fee rather than lose out on him in the summer (assuming he's as good as people say), but a loan?

Loan signings can only benefit us short-term. We've got countless bigger short-term worries. As ever, I'm bemused with the happenings up at Horwich.

doffcocker wrote:I could understand us wanting to buy him now for a nominal fee rather than lose out on him in the summer (assuming he's as good as people say), but a loan?

Loan signings can only benefit us short-term. We've got countless bigger short-term worries. As ever, I'm bemused with the happenings up at Horwich.

isn't this just a loan with an "option to buy" clause?

wanderlust wrote:

doffcocker wrote:I could understand us wanting to buy him now for a nominal fee rather than lose out on him in the summer (assuming he's as good as people say), but a loan?

Loan signings can only benefit us short-term. We've got countless bigger short-term worries. As ever, I'm bemused with the happenings up at Horwich.

isn't this just a loan with an "option to buy" clause?

We all agree that we need defenders badly. However, I suspect the chance to sign Trotter was to good to miss.

wanderlust wrote:

doffcocker wrote:I could understand us wanting to buy him now for a nominal fee rather than lose out on him in the summer (assuming he's as good as people say), but a loan?

Loan signings can only benefit us short-term. We've got countless bigger short-term worries. As ever, I'm bemused with the happenings up at Horwich.

isn't this just a loan with an "option to buy" clause?

Perhaps wander but it still makes no sense. If DF is this keen on him why not buy him now, put him on a two or three year contract and then if things don't work out we can at least get our money back selling him. His price is only 400K apparently and that's because his contract is up in summer. If he had two years left he'd have cost at least a million. We could in a worst case scenario make at least 100K profit on the guy selling him on so why are we paying his wages for the rest of this season and tying up money from the next window's available funds when we know we have next to nothing to play with anyway? It's a senseless deal, a sort of Buy now Pay later thing.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:This is an odd deal imo. He's out of contract in the summer anyway but we're going to pay for him then? if I might be blunt WHY are we loaning him at all? I understand his price is only about 400K so if we've agreed to pay that for him why not just pay it now, make him our player on a two or three year deal then sell him on if he doesn't work out for a profit however small it may be? Add to that the fact it's 400K less that the manager will have to work with in the summer and this makes no sense at all.

All to do with cash flow. About 10,000 supporters( mugs) like me , in June will be stumping up for our season tickets. That's about £3 m going into club coffers. When that arrives we'll pay for young Liam

In the mean time, we're paying his wages (there's gotta be a lot in it for Millwall for them to let their best player leave 6 months prematurely), and can't afford players we're in immediate need of.

About the only area we don't need more players is midfield so another difficult to understand decision by Dougie. If he keeps this up he will soon achieve the level of genius achieved by the mighty Owen Coyle, Jinsy Praise Him!

We might not lack bodies in midfield but everytime i watch us I always think midfield is one of the glaring weakness' with this team, little composure, devoid of any creativity, very little attacking intent and not much skill. 

There's no area on the pitch we can't add quality too IMO.

Apart from his name, this is a player I have thought could be very useful in our midfield for some time now. I think it is a good piece of business by Doug. We have a number of midfielders who end their tenure with us this summer. Bringing Trotter in now allows Doug to determine which players are best to go forward with as well as gives him additional options for the rest of this season. Welcome to the Trotters, Trotter!

I remember him being decent - having the name Trotter makes me remember this...

Good bit of business I hope...

Fair comments Hipster and Keegan but I am starting to wonder how long Dougie needs to make a difference. The last couple of months at the end of last season looked promising but once Dawson left every thing seemed to fall apart. I know money is tight and the board are doing nothing to help him but there are too many decisions I find hard or impossible to understand like his misplaced faith in Knight or Pratley. Why was he so keen to sign CDavies? Why can't he find a left back - not that Tierney was any good either. What does he see in Mason? Why loan out Sordell when he actually seemed to be fitting in and scoring goals in pre-season?

I am one of the few on here that is still prepared to give Dougie some more time but my support for him is gradually disappearing.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:
There's no area on the pitch we can't add quality too IMO.

But there's plainly some areas that need strengthening more than others. As it stands, we've got one striker to choose from tomorrow and four, maybe five defenders, all centre halves, except a teenage right back.

BoltonTillIDie wrote:I remember him being decent - having the name Trotter makes me remember this...

Good bit of business I hope...

No dispute about him being decent BTID. I just feel the way the deal's been put together makes no sense AND we need players in other areas much more urgently. As a straightforward but now I'd have been quite happy with bringing him in because at worst we could put him on a two to three year deal and if it didn't work out sell him in summer with every chance of making a profit. However, we still need a left back and if DF put this buy now pay later deal together for trotter to let us sign a good LB today then I'll be quite happy with that, it would make sense. I'm not exactly holding my breath for that though because sense is something the club seems unable to spell much less practice without the word "non" in front of it.