2024 Season, Arrivals and Departures

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Originally Posted by D24Saint

Has to be Grivosti related, very good player but doubts have crept in over whether he is injury prone or just had a bad run of luck.

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Yeah that's fair, suppose with him still out until March at the earliest it probably is a bit light in depth in that position. Definitely a shame with Grivosti, underrated player but he's now had 3 severe injuries in what hasn't been a long career thus far. Wouldn't be confident he returns the same player but fingers crossed.

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Originally Posted by outspoken

I wonder if it's a fear that if something was to happen to Redmond again it could derail their season whereas now they have serious options in that position. Losing Redmond cost them dearly in Europe last season.

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Redmond and Grivosti being out last season was a killer, for sure. Night and day when he was and wasn't in the side, albeit that wasn't helped by the options after him being Noah Lewis and an admittedly decent but still young and error-prone McGrath. Keeley should help lift the burden on him and I liked the sound of Phillips as a potential back-up, although it seems Turner will be a coup for whoever gets him given the reviews I'm seeing.

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Originally Posted by RealJohn91

I already mentioned Hoare earlier, please keep up.

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Few pints taken on John?

Yes you mentioned Hoare but not in the same context. I think the post was pretty clear but I'll give you a dig out. You suggested money was the issue. I was pointing out that, despite your claim that you can't offer deals that compete with Pats, Shels or Rovers, you are still bidding on the same players. Why would you bid for Hoare if you couldn't offer a similar contract? You bid for Byrne, Hoban and McEneff. Again, your terms aren't the issue. Rovers signing a player every few years isn't an issue. We didn't even bother this year which tells its own story.

Where did I mention money was the problem? I said other clubs have more money which they obviously do, that goes without saying. It doesn't really matter if you have a few bob if someone else has more and also has other advantages. We're going to offer decent deals to players but we're not going to push the boat out like Derry, Rovers or Pat's can. If we do that again we definitely won't have a football club anymore and we still have a couple of years in the wilderness while Dalyer is getting rebuilt. And you're still ignoring my original point about the lack of known players available to us and the reasons why that is unless you expect us to offer 50k for every Tom, Dick and Harry under contract around the league.

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Originally Posted by RealJohn91

Where did I mention money was the problem? I said other clubs have more money which they obviously do, that goes without saying. It doesn't really matter if you have a few bob if someone else has more and also has other advantages. We're going to offer decent deals to players but we're not going to push the boat out like Derry, Rovers or Pat's can. If we do that again we definitely won't have a football club anymore and we still have a couple of years in the wilderness while Dalyer is getting rebuilt. And you're still ignoring my original point about the lack of known players available to us and the reasons why that is unless you expect us to offer 50k for every Tom, Dick and Harry under contract around the league.

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You just said it again......"Other clubs have more money".....That doesn't really make sense when you're bidding for the same players. Why bid for them if you aren't competitive? Go down a level and compete there. Every club in the league has done better business than bohs at this point.

You're still ignoring my original point for some reason so it's probably for the best if we leave this cause it feels like we're going around in circles.

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Originally Posted by RealJohn91

You're still ignoring my original point for some reason so it's probably for the best if we leave this cause it feels like we're going around in circles.

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I answered your original point.

Other clubs have been signing players. Waterford, Galway, Shels, Sligo and Drogheda have all built teams. There are players available, bohs have just failed to attract any.

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Originally Posted by ontheotherhand

I answered your original point.

Other clubs have been signing players. Waterford, Galway, Shels, Sligo and Drogheda have all built teams. There are players available, bohs have just failed to attract any.

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Yeah it's a shame we didn't compete with Sligo for the Shels backup right back, a lad who was playing with Cobh, a crocked Rovers winger and a midfielder Dundalk didn't want. Who could forget all those marquee Drogheda signings as well. I'm sure those players could've taken us to the next level alright.

So you can't compete with the big clubs (despite having the money) and you look down on the others?

Not to go full Kenny Shiels but Bohs have definitely beaten us for players in the very recent past...

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Originally Posted by ontheotherhand

So you can't compete with the big clubs (despite having the money) and you look down on the others?

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We definitely can't compete with seven figure loses and Billionaire fans nope

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Originally Posted by RealJohn91

Yeah it's a shame we didn't compete with Sligo for the Shels backup right back, a lad who was playing with Cobh, a crocked Rovers winger and a midfielder Dundalk didn't want. Who could forget all those marquee Drogheda signings as well. I'm sure those players could've taken us to the next level alright.

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In fairness the one player ye did compete with us for didn’t want to join ye

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Originally Posted by Nah Nah Nah Nah

In fairness the one player ye did compete with us for didn’t want to join ye

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Although on a selfish level I'd have enjoyed seeing much more of McGinty if he'd gone to D7, I thought it was nice to see Sligo come out as beneficiaries of a geographical decision for once. It's a constant battle and there are plenty more players looking to head back to Dublin than Ballyshannon and you're usually at a disadvantage right away, so it was nice to see.

Reading through some of the Bohs fans' posts, its almost like there is a need, an enjoyment, to be valiant underdogs, that a faux lack of resources leads to a moral integrity and carries the club to relative success. The being St Pauli of the Irish game is as important as silverware. Is it a case of getting used to battling to survive large debt over the years and often over performing or has the football side of the club been significantly diluted in place of social entrepreneurship efforts? Bohs are in a better financial space than many now, debt managed, sell out crowds, Manchester United levels of merchandising sales, or millions of Euro value of non Bob M jersey sales publicity, sale of players, the very real likelihood of a very large sell-on clause being activated in the near future, DCC leading and paying for the development of Dalymount. All of this yet the club is behind even Dundalk in the transfer market. Maybe Im missing something and that the existing squad is ready to soar this season but at face value it looks like the purse strings could be loosened, that they could cut the feeder club arrangement with Rovers and build a side that will challange - if Pats are pushing the top two closely Bohs definitely could also.

There is a very limited pool of players that rotate around LOI clubs - and there can be a variety of factors that can result in players signing for a particular club - self- advancement, ambition to play European football, wages, cost of rent/living (which can vary in different parts of the country), home town (it made sense that Amond signed for Waterford - and yes I know he is from Carlow), personal reasons of various degrees. After that it is a matter of finding players from outside the country, or young Irish (and other) players abroad who have been released by British clubs - and that is not an easy thing to do. Whether you like it or not, the cost of living is high in Ireland, accommodation is exceptionally difficult to find, and the LOI is not particularly attractive for such players.

All else being equal, the clubs that have more money available will inevitably attract the better quality players because they can afford (or are willing) to pay higher wages (or offer other incentives - i.e. free accommodation etc).

You’d have to laugh at the narrative of Bohs not being able to compete financially for players. You’d Daniel lambert on the radio last week banging on about their 2 million euro annual merchandise sales, 1.5 million off a Matt Doherty transfer not long ago, 250k for Afolabi and reportedly 550k for McManus on the way, on top of any other regular budget the club would have. I’d love to have seen the contract Drogheda offered Frantz Pierrot that Bohs allegedly couldn’t have competed with and would prefer to go less than 3 weeks away from the season with just 1 Estonian striker who’s an unknown quantity in league of Ireland football

Thanks for the 101 of the transfer market - but the same circumstances exist for all clubs. It is actually a throw back to a time when clubs had to dig hard to unearth gems rather than scanning a database, that a team may need to be built from the youths up rather than buy a side. The way Derry and Rovers just threw kitchen sinks at league winning players to base their title challanges on is not new in LoI, prior to the 2000s there was an equally small pool of quality players and the merry go round was alsmost as bad with players as it was with managers. How well a team is being coached is now as significant as the quality of players brought in in relation to being successful. Its just a new phase of the old cycle that clubs and coaches are facing.

An obvious point and this isn't the only league to see it, nor even the only sport to see it, but there is a very clear and growing divide between the clubs that have outside financial support (or, if you prefer, the clubs that can, or feel they can, absorb heavy losses) and the clubs that are self-financing. I'm not implying that the latter can't be successful but it requires a lot more pieces.

Just on the "no players available in the league part' I think that's a bit flimsy. There were certainly more available than Dayle Rooney. I mean Radkowski (Yeah transfer from Poland but knowledge of the league and specifically Bohs is there) Leahy and Sheppard were all available (Sheppard may still be available, unsure on that one) but had those 3 been signed by Bohs the narrative would be "Bohs have a decent squad there, they might need another striker in but they look covered everywhere else". Now maybe Sheppard is out of our budget since Talbot will still be drawing a wage I'd imagine but I'd have a hard time believing Leahy and Radkowski are on significantly more that Bohs could offer.

I think the older bohs supporters still believe football is more important then anything else but the club has been taken.over by a left wing right on crowd for whom football is only a part of it.

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Originally Posted by sbgawa

I think the older bohs supporters still believe football is more important then anything else but the club has been taken.over by a left wing right on crowd for whom football is only a part of it.

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Ah no, that’s the narrative from a few lads who’d love a return to the 1000 people rattling around the ground, empty bars and a “proper” football atmosphere.basically hate the fact it’s harder to act the ******** if the place is jammed . They conveniently overlook the fact we were buying trophies with money we hadn’t got, and almost went to the wall. The football side is still no1, but every club now HAS to be involved with an academy, women’s game, kids community teams and elite underage teams. That costs and the only way to afford full time is expand your base by outreaching into your locality and beyond, and get merchandise savvy.
Rovers ain’t doing anything different to us, we just have added a cultural, and non football aspect to the club.
Look it works, massive membership increase
3000 as opposed to 400, and huge revenue from outward shirt sales( fontaines, Aslan, Marley, etc.)
Yes the atmosphere can be flat at times, new fans are still unsure but we haven’t perfected the gathering the singing section in one area yet, it’ll happen.