Not me. Although some people like to make subtle digs without tagging you in which is always nice…
Don’t forget, a lot of information some of the ITK posters have are confidential, and by commenting on certain things, means we “give away the game” so to speak.
Also, we have life’s outside of SZ. I have a wife, and a two year old son. My wife’s shifts work around mine, so I’m either at work, looking after my son, or spending family time together which is fairly rare as my shifts go over weekends too.
I’ve been speaking to my contact/s and have a clear picture of what is going on, which has been backed up by other posters and other sources too. I’ve been allowed to give an update on this situation.
Yes, Josh Kelly is the striker I’ve been alluding to all summer. Yes, he is the one that his club demanded a six figure fee. Yes, he is the one who has scored in this division. It wasn’t Cheek, the striker that went to Hartlepool or any other striker that was named.
He hasn’t been the only striker we have been interested in this summer, but he has been the one most work has gone into. Although, someone else ran him close at one stage. Yes, if this move doesn’t come off, we do have other targets, not just the two lads we have on trial. I wouldn’t be overly surprised to see another striker come in, even if we did sign Kelly.
Kelly wants to come here. Medical, personal terms etc would be a formality. He has family from the area, who have connections to the Club. However, his Club aren’t overly keen on doing business with us at the moment. As
@Bexley Blue @Magnum PI &
@Smiffy said, although our reputation within the game is improving, it’s still not the best. They want a larger fee upfront than the bid from Solihull Moors, but the figure would be the same. We haven’t offered more than them officially, I believe it was a conversation about keeping our “initial outlay” the same, but increasing the figure they’d get overall to negate spending more upfront, but they want a larger figure upfront.
Solihull Moors have had a bid in for a little while, and like us, have been discussing for a while. They have a bid which has been “accepted” but I believe that Kelly wasn’t overly keen initially, and is holding out for us. However, if the two options are stick where he is, or more to Solihull Moors, then I imagine he’ll move.
Whether we can agree on whatever that larger fee upfront is, I’m not overly optimistic.
We all know things are tight in the world, tight in football clubs, and especially tight at Southend. I’m led to believe October is a key month for us, when things could change financially for the better, I can only assume that’s the training ground complete and work beginning on FF.
If we miss out on Kelly, we will still bring a striker in. Like missing out on Mussa (nothing to do with the embargo, which we are out of), we brought it Wes.
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. Josh Kelly money 
