Zat Knight to quit Bolton

From the lion of vienna suite...

Tabloid reports, as we know, are very hit or miss. The Mirror reported tonight that Zat Knight will no longer be a Bolton Wanderer come season's end. While we know the tabloids have a history of being wrong, they do get it right once in a while and boy do we hope this one is true.

The report says that Zat Knight will leave the Reebok regardless of which league Bolton end up in this summer. Apparently Bolton Wanderers have already offered him a new deal which he has turned down. The Mirror also reports that Big Sam Allardyce's West Ham United is his potential landing point.

The article also called him an "ex-Fulham ace." We think they misspelled "ass."

So what do you guys reckon?

No surprise. No issue. Bad signing. Don't hit your head on the doorframe on the way out, Zat.

With Wheater out for a while, OC will need to deliver some defenders in the summer unless some of Ricketts, Steinsson, Robinson or Knight are retained...?! He stated he was buying Ream even if we kept Cahill, so we are in need of bodies..

To answer the Op, I'd move on, but with concern of the ability of OC to find decent replacements.. Which league will be huge..

Mallorca Trotter wrote:
To answer the Op, I'd move on, but with concern of the ability of OC to find decent replacements.. Which league will be huge..

Offering Knight a new contract makes no sense whichever way you look at it, though. He has no resale value. He is on top wages. He's past his best. He wasn't all that when he was at his best.

Whether you're a fan of the quality of Coyle's signings is a different argument, but you can't argue that he has consistently signed younger players with a resale value on lower wages. The only exceptions are Petrov and Reo-Coker, but Reo-Coker was only 27 when we signed him, and Petrov is our player of the year.

Robbie Blake....!

Yeah OK, you got me there. That's a leading contender for stupidest signing in the club's history.

Hahaha

largehat wrote:Yeah OK, you got me there. That's a leading contender for stupidest signing in the club's history.

Oscar Perez springs to mind too.

Let him go.

Whatever happened to Riley and Mears?

He ins't a world beater but IF we went down we will need a bigger squad than we do right now IMO, the amount of games they seem to play in that league on a saturday then wednesday calls for a big team.

For that reason alone I would keep Knight with the injury to Wheats.

If we do stay up I wouldn't lose much sleep, just hope coyle brings in a much better replacement.

Aaron - if we go down we will have to cut the wage bill by something like 75%. Players like Knight, Klasnic, Jaaskelainen etc being out of contract is our saving grace. We will only be able to afford to pay a small handful of players big money, for one season in the Championship. He will have to be replaced by someone 6-7 years younger who will play for us for £15-20K per week.

Thank the lord..

only worry is that he will give even less of a shit than he normally does on Sunday... but then again im not sure thats possible.

Don't read too much into it, probably leaked by his agent to drum up a bit of interest (which won't come) and he'll end up signing an unprecedented 5 year bumper deal with us.

without question the lowest Football IQ i've ever seen at Bolton, and one of the worst players.

I still would offer a one year at a reduced rate. If we do have any money to spend it will be a shame to now go ahead a spend on another CB.
Our on-going problem is we always cut players and then scramble at the deadline to get a replacement.

If I were Zat Knight, aged 32, I'd probably think I could and should do better than a 1 year contract at a reduced rate, particularly if we go down. The other aspect is he wants to go back to London.

Defenders were a priority at the beginning of this season never mind the end of it. We are very thin on the ground. I'm wondering if some of the younger lads are ready to step up - or not?
We certainly need the younger strikers and midfielders to make their move.
But by God we need some steadiness at the back.

largehat wrote:No surprise. No issue. Bad signing. Don't hit your head on the doorframe on the way out, Zat.

This minus the "don't".

And I'm gonna stick my neck out and say I think Zat Knight has been excellent at times for us.

Obviously this is balanced out, if not outweighed, by a load of despicable displays.

When OC first came in Knight performed quite well with Cahill but I think he lost his way when Wheater started to take his place as our main centre back.

If you had to pay him one compliment you could say he's fairly good at clearing headers.

everything else about his game is well well well below par.

he had not a bad game today, by his standards.