2023 Summer transfers

The Athletic has a piece on the Montiel rape accusation. I trust we’ve carried out proper due diligence.

He hasn't played many minutes at a top level, but he is clearly very highly rated and thought to have a great future ahead of him. Could be very exciting, but may also need a bit of time to adapt.

I saw a viewpoint on Twitter that we shouldn't be doing 'this' anymore i.e. developing players for other PL clubs. I'm a bit split. If we get a year of good service out of him, it's win win. But I do get the sentiment. Though again on the flip-side, we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves if we start to consider ourselves as similar to Chelsea. Thoughts?

Also get the sentiment. But it seems that we’ve been searching for a top class midfielder all summer and our targets all feel that they can do better than us. So do we spend our budget on a compromise option, or use one or two well thought out loans to supplement what we have, in the hope that one of our first choice targets will be more attainable next year? I don’t mind that approach.

If he's betterer than what we have already I'm in. Before we started developing players for other clubs we were bottom of the championship getting tumped every week. Until we get taking over by a gulf state I don't think we really need to worry about our rivals in the other champions league spots.

My take is that it’s a relatively cheap way of getting players in who otherwise wouldn’t come to us. If those players turn out to be as good as heralded, then theoretically we improve as a team which in turn makes it easier for us to attract (and afford) ‘better’ players in the future.

In any case, when we buy (rather than loan) players it’s not much different. For example, plenty were looking at Danilo if reports are true, but we paid the moderately low fee for him while teams like arsenal and Chelsea wait in the wings, see how he develops, and then willingly pay the inflated premium for him a year or two later. Works for Brighton, Brentford etc and is a means to an end.

Maybe at some point we become the premium-paying club but it’s the way it is right now and we have to use this system and accept that we’ll lose treasured players probably quite soon after they establish themselves.

I don't subscribe - interested to know if there was any more info in the article that wasn't already known? As you say, I hope we know what we're doing here.

Agreed. We don't seem to able to get the preferred long term midfield option over the line at the moment. This potentially defers that to next summer, keeps us the right side of FFP this year whilst also addressing some other areas, and allows for a possible additional year of Premier League status to make us a more viable destination for the long term player we want.

It effectively just pulls together all the threads. They have spoken to his lawyer, the alleged victim's lawyer and the prosecutor to summarise what the position is and to Forest, who say they are happy that they have done their due diligence (although they haven't spoken to the victim's lawyer or the prosecutor as part of that, it probably means they have checked they are legally okay in what they are doing). To be honest, whilst obviously having no idea what actually happened, it feels uncomfortable to actively bring in a player under a live rape investigation.

Our priority this season still is to not be as bad as Sheff U, Luton and... Everton? Wolves?

Bolstering our squad with players who will help wth that is all good, nothing bad.

It’s a balanced piece, and they (The Athletic) are careful to make the point that Montiel has not been charged, and it is only because of Argentina’s different legal system that his identity has been revealed at all; in this country we wouldn’t know who it is (so for all you know we have “actively brought in a player under a live rape investigation” before, but we didn’t know because charges were never brought.

The piece also says that the police have already closed the case once because there was no evidence (including from the alleged victim); they re-opened it this year after the girl went on TV (anonymously). The alleged offence took place 4 years ago.

Forest were contacted by the Athletic for comment, and their reply was they are satisfied that they have done sufficient due diligence.

I guess we’ll have to take their word for that (but they would have an expensive asset suddenly became completely worthless if he’s subsequently charged & convicted, so they would have been mad not to do a lot of digging before signing him).

Depends whether "due diligence" means "we've put a clause in the loan that says we can terminate it if he's charged".

Isn't it also an option to buy, rather than an obligation? I presume that was deliberate.

Presumably this guy on Twitter also thinks that we shouldn't be using clubs like Carlisle to develop youngsters like Finn Back?

I don't get the sentiment, to be honest; it's literally how the loan system works. If we went all purist and said we will no longer loan from other Prem clubs, we'd simply be voluntarily reducing our options for strengthening the squad.

I wonder how this Twitter guy felt about Forest developing Djed Spence for another Championship club?

I think people would be better off not giving a flying fuck what some nobber on Twitter thinks. For pretty much any topic.

You lost me at “I saw a viewpoint on Twitter….”

There’s a lot of shit of Twitter. There is some good stuff. I’d be extremely selective about which posts I used as source material for a debate on talkback.