Josh Koroma

[Thor]

Sounds like a plan.

[Millennial Snowflake]

How difficult is it for people to understand, we had no choice in the matter he exercised his release clause, just the same as our incoming signing did.

Fine but we need a like for like replacement for Bonne and that isn't Wilkinson .

Spot on, unless he can score 24 goals a season !

Brilliant logic. If he gets 17 goals and 10 assists and we finish in the top 7, I guess he’s been a terrible replacement

[Cheshunto]

Now we’ve sold our top scorer we won’t be hitting that target and we will now struggle to hit 4K. After this news I’m agreeing with Cream.

Who wants to buy a season ticket when your best player is sold for peanuts?

Bad business I’m afraid.

We had no choice though, he had a buy out clause just like the incoming Wilkinson.
£200k is peanuts I agree, but he probably wouldn’t have signed if put a £500k tag on him.
I think it will be harder to take if Josh goes as well.
As for Season Tickets, well 4,500 is going to be difficult to reach whether Bonne stayed or not, the club must be hoping many will re-new before the 30th June deadline, after finding out our opening fixtures.
Personally I reckon we can reach 4,200........I think we’re at around 3,400 at the moment.

[CreamofSumYungGai]

How many clubs who get promoted get a drop of 500 on last year when they should get a rise in season ticket sales ?

I hate to burst your doom&gloom-bubble, but we've actually sold far more season tickets than at this stage last year.

By the 24th June 2018 we were only at just over 2400:

Took us to 7th July to reach 3500:

And by 27th September we were still 20 short of the 4k

So may be a tad premature to suggest a wild slump in numbers just yet.

Good researching!

How many S/Ts did we sell the season before, do you know?

[Hawaii Five O]

I'll be honest, it was lazy researching - I just used the advanced filter on twitter to find posts from the club's account between June & Sept 2018 that mentioned the phrase "season tickets"

Doing the same thing for 2017, we'd gone past the 3500 mark by 2nd Aug (which was a 16 year record https://www.leytonorient.com/news/2017/ ... et-record/) & 3600 by 4th Aug

No further updates that season that I can see on twitter.

[CreamofSumYungGai]

Good stuff. So ahead of the same point in time of both the last two years, which were both record sales.

I still reckon this year is different given the higher base and the early bird discounts on offer - I can’t see us increasing by as much as either 17 or 18 during July and August.

[Hawaii Five O]

There could be a mini boost in applications when the fixtures are released - my friend is waiting to see how the home & away dates fit with her shift patterns before she decides & I doubt she's the only one.

Plus there'll be the procrastinators who always leave it till the day before their seat reservations expire. And the people who are waiting to see what currently-reserved seats become available.

But yeah - the early bird offer will have meant a big chunk of folk will have signed up already.

[Disoriented]

If we keep selling our best players for peanuts, those ST numbers will stop rather than slow down.

[Redcard]

I don’t know why people can’t get to grips with the fact that Bonne agreed to stay provided we agreed to his release clause set at £200,000. Once an offer came in at that price or above we had no control over whether he stayed or not.

[Thor]

I don’t know why people can’t get to grips with the fact that Bonne agreed to stay provided we agreed to his release clause set at £200,000. Once an offer came in at that price or above we had no control over whether he stayed or not.

The issue isn’t that he had a min release clause it’s the amount that was set.

[jamespevans]

Rumours suggest that Huddersfield are no longer interested in JK and are now chasing Forest Green Rovers Reece Brown 11 goals and 15 assists last season can go for 100k makes the 200k for Bonne a good day at the office

If he has a £100k release then maybe we should see if he'd be interested in signing for us.

Wish people would do their homework. Reece is out of contract at Forest Green (so no release clause in place) and is likely to go up at least one division.

[eagwgw]

Bigger question is, does Koroma have a similar thing?

In my mind, such a clause is fair in that a player can leave if we don't get promoted, and a lower fee is a nice gesture.

For us to be promoted and the clause invoked seems to run against the spirit of things, because in the event of promotion it is likely that said player would have a good season and see an uplift in value. He is therefore priced as if we have failed, but we didn't.

Let's say for Koroma his clause is £400k if we don't get promoted. We actually win promotion, he scored 18 goals and he still goes for £400k (bear in mind Kemar Roofe was sold to Leeds for £3m after such a season in League Two). That is a terrible outcome for the club.

If I were to suggest that the release clause should only activate on non-promotion only I think everyone would agree that it is better for the club, and the club come before any player. The thought of Bonne insisting upon this (release clause whether we got promoted or not) doesn't add up fully to me. At the time of negotiating that deal last year we were the biggest club in the League, and he had one full season behind his belt after being an unproven rookie when he originally signed.

Natural for bigger clubs to come calling when players do well, but we have to be maximising the returns to the club. Peterborough seem to get top dollars for their players. I suspect if a player tried to hold MacAnthony to ransom by asking for a low release price he would tell them to get fecked and sign someone else.

[Cheshunto]

I don’t know why people can’t get to grips with the fact that Bonne agreed to stay provided we agreed to his release clause set at £200,000. Once an offer came in at that price or above we had no control over whether he stayed or not.

The issue isn’t that he had a min release clause it’s the amount that was set.

The problem is that if Orient tried to set a higher release clause fee then Bonne probably wouldn’t have signed an extension to his contract. I agree that £200k is peanuts but Orient did well out of Bonne and Orient have helped him getting a move to a Championship club. I believe we’ve also signed Wilkinson via a similar way, it’s not ideal but it’s the way modern football seems to work these days.

[Buddy Manucci]

Everyone still presuming 200k is the exact figure and no other clauses were interested in the buy out part?

[Smendrick Feaselberg]

Everyone still presuming 200k is the exact figure and no other clauses were interested in the buy out part?

Not completely sure what you're saying, but if you're suggesting it might not have just been a straight fee (whatever that was) and there could have been other terms in the transfer agreement, then this is most likely correct. I'm assuming there were other conditions in there too such as sell on, fees based on appearances, goals etc.

[CreamofSumYungGai]

I don’t know why people can’t get to grips with the fact that Bonne agreed to stay provided we agreed to his release clause set at £200,000. Once an offer came in at that price or above we had no control over whether he stayed or not.

The issue isn’t that he had a min release clause it’s the amount that was set.

The problem is that if Orient tried to set a higher release clause fee then Bonne probably wouldn’t have signed an extension to his contract. I agree that £200k is peanuts but Orient did well out of Bonne and Orient have helped him getting a move to a Championship club. I believe we’ve also signed Wilkinson via a similar way, it’s not ideal but it’s the way modern football seems to work these days.

Agreed. I'd also agree that £200k is a touch low, and eagy makes a good point that it could have been set at a higher level based on some conditions such as if we gained promotion or he scored a certain number of goals. Maybe it was. I can't see Travis being as open as the Daggers chairman and letting us know all the details.

Either way, still a bit disappointing to see people digging out Justin and Lingy over this.

[Buddy Manucci]

Everyone still presuming 200k is the exact figure and no other clauses were interested in the buy out part?

Not completely sure what you're saying, but if you're suggesting it might not have just been a straight fee (whatever that was) and there could have been other terms in the transfer agreement, then this is most likely correct. I'm assuming there were other conditions in there too such as sell on, fees based on appearances, goals etc.

Exactly that.

[Top of the JES]

I think we got cracking value from Bonne.

Free transfer with a sell on who very few rated when he signed. 2 seasons barely missing a game and nearly 50 goals. stayed fit, worked his wot-sits off and was totally committed and helped us to the NL championship. He could have sat tight on his previous contract and walked for nothing this summer but in signing his new deal he ensured we would get a fee and a profit and he had the promise that he could go when the trigger amount was met this summer. The player and his agent were in a really strong position when re negotiating and if £200k does seem low everybody knew it was either that or go for nothing.

It was a good deal all round and I have no doubt we will have a sell on ourselves. Hope he smashes it at Charlton.

I think it's much the same with Koroma but the club were in a stronger position re the contract re negotiation because we would get some level of compensation if he let his original contract run down, I'm sure when Sunderland bid in January that he and his was told he could leave in the summer if the club received a suitable offer. As long as we can invest a major part of the fees we receive in new players we'll be OK.

[Red_Army]

I think we got cracking value from Bonne.

Free transfer with a sell on who very few rated when he signed. 2 seasons barely missing a game and nearly 50 goals. stayed fit, worked his wot-sits off and was totally committed and helped us to the NL championship. He could have sat tight on his previous contract and walked for nothing this summer but in signing his new deal he ensured we would get a fee and a profit and he had the promise that he could go when the trigger amount was met this summer. The player and his agent were in a really strong position when re negotiating and if £200k does seem low everybody knew it was either that or go for nothing.

It was a good deal all round and I have no doubt we will have a sell on ourselves. Hope he smashes it at Charlton.

I think it's much the same with Koroma but the club were in a stronger position re the contract re negotiation because we would get some level of compensation if he let his original contract run down, I'm sure when Sunderland bid in January that he and his was told he could leave in the summer if the club received a suitable offer. As long as we can invest a major part of the fees we receive in new players we'll be OK.

You're right to an extent, but as an under-24, we would have been entitled to a tribunal fee.

[CreamofSumYungGai]

I think we got cracking value from Bonne.

Free transfer with a sell on who very few rated when he signed. 2 seasons barely missing a game and nearly 50 goals. stayed fit, worked his wot-sits off and was totally committed and helped us to the NL championship. He could have sat tight on his previous contract and walked for nothing this summer but in signing his new deal he ensured we would get a fee and a profit and he had the promise that he could go when the trigger amount was met this summer. The player and his agent were in a really strong position when re negotiating and if £200k does seem low everybody knew it was either that or go for nothing.

It was a good deal all round and I have no doubt we will have a sell on ourselves. Hope he smashes it at Charlton.

I think it's much the same with Koroma but the club were in a stronger position re the contract re negotiation because we would get some level of compensation if he let his original contract run down, I'm sure when Sunderland bid in January that he and his was told he could leave in the summer if the club received a suitable offer. As long as we can invest a major part of the fees we receive in new players we'll be OK.

We would have got compensation if Bonne's contract had run down too, he's still only 23 isn't he? I'd guess we'd have got more than £200k at tribunal too.

I think the £200k is a touch low but if thats what it took to get him to stay for the whole of this season and keep him committed and focused, which he undoubtedly was, I wouldn't complain too much about it. If we can carry on taking on 21 year old cast offs from higher up the leagues, turning their careers around and sending them on their way two years later and made a profit on them (including their wages) in the process, that's not bad business.

[Top of the JES]

I think we got cracking value from Bonne.

Free transfer with a sell on who very few rated when he signed. 2 seasons barely missing a game and nearly 50 goals. stayed fit, worked his wot-sits off and was totally committed and helped us to the NL championship. He could have sat tight on his previous contract and walked for nothing this summer but in signing his new deal he ensured we would get a fee and a profit and he had the promise that he could go when the trigger amount was met this summer. The player and his agent were in a really strong position when re negotiating and if £200k does seem low everybody knew it was either that or go for nothing.

It was a good deal all round and I have no doubt we will have a sell on ourselves. Hope he smashes it at Charlton.

I think it's much the same with Koroma but the club were in a stronger position re the contract re negotiation because we would get some level of compensation if he let his original contract run down, I'm sure when Sunderland bid in January that he and his was told he could leave in the summer if the club received a suitable offer. As long as we can invest a major part of the fees we receive in new players we'll be OK.

You're right to an extent, but as an under-24, we would have been entitled to a tribunal fee.

Best to avoid tribunals at all costs though as they won't be favouring a NL team over an EFL team we would be lucky to get £100 k off a tribunal IMHO.

[CreamofSumYungGai]

We're no longer a NL team.
Have you got any recent tribunal results to base that £100k on?

[Top of the JES]

We're no longer a NL team.
Have you got any recent tribunal results to base that £100k on?

Point taken about NL but that's how a tribunal would probably see it with the recent goal record being at that level.

Nothing recent on tribunals just knowing how these things tend to stack up against smaller clubs, always better to negotiate a deal. We all know how good these lads are but three blokes sitting in a committee room who haven't seen them play are always going to favour the buying team.