Charlie is my BARGAIN
£200,000 United were forced to pay Rangers for Telfer is small change when you consider starlet’s potential value at Tannadice, insists McNamara
THERE was a lot of hot air expended during the debate surrounding Dundee United’s acquisition of Charlie Telfer from Rangers, yet Jackie McNamara’s cool assessment is that his club have secured a bargain.
United chairman Stephen Thompson was angry and typically vocal in his criticism of the SPFL’s adjudication that £200,000 be paid for the 19-year-old midfielder, double the amount tabled in the initial offer.
Rangers, smarting at losing the poster boy for the club’s Murray Park academy, revelled in a minor victory as they collected the money. Yet while the cash has already been swallowed up to simply keep the Ibrox club operational, United have emerged with an exciting new first-team player for a modest sum.
Having announced annual profits of £1.2million to June 2014 — a figure that excludes the millions made from the sales of Ryan Gauld and Andrew Robertson — United did not exactly have to go cap in hand to the bank to find the Telfer money.
Manager McNamara adds further context by revealing United had forked out an even greater sum to Queen’s Park in the form of a 10 per cent sell-on fee from Robertson’s £2.8m transfer to Hull City.
Telfer has been a growing influence in the United side in recent weeks and scored his second goal for the club in the 6-2 thrashing of Dundee on New Year’s Day.
He is now pushing for a start as the Tannadice club look to apply pressure on league leaders Aberdeen at Hamilton tomorrow night.
‘People say: “Look what they paid for him”, but Charlie was one of the best players in the Rangers academy,’ said McNamara. ‘The boy is a talent. We ended up paying more to Queen’s Park as a sell-on for Robertson than we did to Rangers for Charlie, so for me it is a bargain.’
Telfer had made just one first-team appearance for Rangers prior to his move to Tannadice last June and has required some fine-tuning from United, who operate in conjunction with the sports science department at St Andrews University.
Fellow midfielder Blair Spittal, the club’s latest acquisition from Queen’s Park, required the same attention but both are now fully-fledged first-team squad members in McNamara’s eyes.
‘Most of the kids we have brought in have been for the long term,’ he said. ‘When we’re trying to sign players, it helps that we have those younger ones as examples. We play these kids.
‘With Spittal, you see the difference in his body shape, his legs. Charlie is getting stronger, too — in the space of six months, those two are now ready.
‘As much as I would have liked to keep Andrew (Robertson) for another season, within a year he is in the Premiership.
‘You look at Andrew when he first came, his legs and everything about him. Then you look at the difference 12 months later, he is an athlete. He is a Scotland international and is in the Premiership, so the proof is in the pudding.’
The next project will be the club’s newest signing, striker Simon Murray, who has scored 18 goals already this season for the League Two leaders Arbroath.
Murray has been loaned back to the Lichties for the rest of the season but, crucially, will train with his new team-mates at St Andrews during the week.
All being well, United will have a new goalscoring option for next season — and all for £50,000.
‘In the summer, Simon will be ready, and it is up to us, what we do with him as the sports science guys at the uni, build him up and work on other wee bits of his game,’ added McNamara. ‘Arbroath will get the benefits of that as well — a boy who is a lot fitter, stronger and has gained some good habits with diet and things like that.’ With the club’s bank debt eradicated following a readjustment deal brokered by Thompson and investors, United are in a good place financially and the team’s on-field progress has followed suit. Although a little too flaky to put in a title challenge — recent victories over Celtic and Dundee were followed by dropped points against both St Johnstone and Partick Thistle — United are a work in progress. ‘We’re pleased with the way we have done things,’ said McNamara (left). ‘When you look at the statement of profits — and that’s before you take into account the fees received for Ryan and Andrew — a lot of clubs would look at that with envy.
‘We are also still in all three competitions, five points off the top. We are losing big stars if you like and, although they were hard to replace, we have done all right.’
With money in the bank, transfer fees may be sanctioned but only for players with obvious sell-on potential.
Celtic have been linked with Stuart Armstrong and Nadir Ciftci but United’s bargaining position is strong.
‘I am hoping we get more in than out during January,’ continued McNamara. ‘That is me coming up to two years now and every window has been the same. The same questions, just different players, starting with Johnny Russell back during the first window I had.
‘Teams have all sorts of different problems in Scotland right now, Celtic are the only ones linked with players, while Aberdeen are the only club to have kept all their theirs from last year.
‘If we see something we like, a bit like what we did with Charlie, then we can do that. There are one or two we want to take a look at, that can help us score more goals. We are the top goalscorers in the league but I still feel, with the chances we create, we can score a lot more.’
It’s unlikely United will win the league but McNamara’s dual commitment to youth and attack makes his team arguably the most compelling watch in Scotland.
We’ve ended up paying more to Queen’s Park as a sell-on for Robertson