Peterborough United chairman on selling players before signing them, why one could be consigned to under 21 football and getting behind his young team
Peterborough United will only make more summer signings if current players leave the club.
Posh chairman Darragh MacAnthony admitted on the latest edition of his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast his club’s salary cap limit has been reached following the unexpected arrival of left-back Jack Sparkes last week and the new contract signed by star forward Joel Randall this week.
Posh still have ambitions to sign a central defender – they have been strongly linked with young Norwich City defender Brad Hills – and the departures of transfer-listed players Romoney Crichlow, Kabongo Tshimanga and David Ajiboye would free up some spending money.
Posh look set to start the League One season against Huddersfield Town at the Weston Homes Stadium on Saturday (5.30pm kick off) with rookie pairing Emmanuel Fernandez and Oscar Wallin at the heart of their defence.
"We are now capped out,” MacAnthony said. “I asked the manager whether he wanted a new centre back or for me to tie a key player down on a new contract. He told me to put the centre-back on the back burner for now. This is way we work. If Darren says a player can leave we I will sell him, but if he wants him to stay I will keep him. He had my word on that after we sold Harrison Burrows and Ronnie Edwards. There will be no more departures this summer.
"The same club started with an offer of £750k for Joel and their bid went up to £2 million last week. We said no. I bet Joel’s head has been all over the place, but I sat him down for an hour last weekend and basically made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He probably had life-changing money on offer from the other club. It shows our ambition that we were able to keep him and at the end of our meeting he even asked to be captain!
"Joel played a big part in Jack Sparkes coming to us. When we lost Rio Adebisi to an injury for four months we had to move quickly and Jack was close to signing for a club close to us so we got Joel and Archie Collins, who used to play with at Exeter, on his case and he quickly decided he wanted to play for us. We actually had Jack here to talk terms last summer, but he chose to join Portsmouth which is fair enough. He played a lot of games for the team that won League One. We obviously hadn’t left room for another left-back in our cap, but we couldn’t expect Harley Mills, as well as he had done, to step up so soon.
"We could now do with players leaving. A couple of clubs have bid for Romoney and we have accepted two bids for Kabongo from top end National League clubs, but he doesn’t want to go there because he wants to join a League Two club who have offered far less money. In fact that club, who we have done favours for in the past, made an offer that was taking the mick. It was worse than the one Bradford City made for Romoney. We paid a fee for Kabongo and we are entitled to get a decent fee for him. I’ve told him to drop down into non-league football and win a Golden Boot and then he could write his own cheque, but he and his agent disagreed which is their right, but the alternative would be a season of Under 21 football at the end of which no-one might want you. Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. Marcus Maddison made this mistake a few years back when he could have joined Birmingham or Charlton from us and earned £10k a week, but he waited until the end of the season when he was a free agent and ended up earning £1500 a week. We are confident clubs will come in for David towards the end of the transfer window.
"It’s going to be a fascinating League One this season. We are taking a level-headed approach as we don’t want to put pressure on another young squad and I hope the fans adopt the same patient approach we saw last season as that really helped us. It’s important they let Manny Fernandez grow. He is excellent at bringing the ball out from the back, but he will make mistakes as he hasn’t played much. It’s worth noting Josh Knight gave the ball away with every third pass last season, which is not having a go at him as he was rightly seen as an excellent player for us.
"It’s a long time I’ve seen two tall centre-backs in our team. Manny and Oscar are both a good size and both can play. We let a lot of goals in from set-pieces last season so they should help with that. Oscar is also very quick and I’m excited to see how they get on.”
Posh manager Darren Ferguson is expected to name his new first-team skipper today (Thursday). Bolton Wanderers are known to have bid for Randall this summer. Crichlow and Ajiboye have squad numbers for this season, but Tshimanga does not.
Bradford City have denied they made a bid for Crichlow this summer.