Transfer News, Gossip & Speculation Transfer Thread - Summer 2025 Edition.

[Smiffy]

Kawa said goodbye to Aveley on X.

Halifax rumoured to be the destination but who knows now Cashman is a dead duck.

 

[Hadleigh-shrimper]

Justin talks the talk, let’s attack the season shame can’t act on it. Maher must be livid if walk if was him

 

[bluesfansince1952]

I really fail to see the upside of people posting what players we are looking at, speaking to and OR close to signing It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

The Manager has publicly mentioned this, and is clearly not happy about his and COSU's business being plastered all over social media so what do it?.

I am not saying we lost this particular player due to a few blabber mouths on FB etc, but if there is a chance of other clubs being alerted, and the transfer being held up/more costly/lost then why bother?.

You wouldn't be putting stuff out in the public domain about your company putting together a deal of some sorts, without it being signed so let's not do it with our own football club.

I really fail to see the upside of people posting what players we are looking at, speaking to and OR close to signing It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

There is no upside to the existence of this thread other than it serves to feed the curiosity that is part of human nature. I am on here because I love the little snippets thrown at us by a few on here who are genuinely 'in the know' about these matters but also because it is vaguely satisfying when the odd rumour does come true.

Of all the threads on SZ this one is one of the most popular. It is here to serve the interests of those who feast on rumours as well to satisfy the longing to be among the first to know. Those are unquestionably my motives. At my age I should be patient and perhaps take a month off SZ. I could then check the BBC site every week for news of new signings or perhaps just wait until the first friendly of the season when I could check off the new names in the line up.

But that is not me. I do not want to be patient; if we sign Cashman or anyone else I want to know yesterday, and, should the deal fall through, I need to know asap. As for KM's strange obsession with security that seems to overlook the fact there is little or no secrecy in football. By the time London Shrimper shares his news with us it will already have been known to anyone in football with reasonable connections, especially in our own league. How many people is that? Two hundred? More?

Keep the rumours coming. I remain a thrill seeker despite my age. Yes, I should know better but I still can't wait and neither can many others. I want to read that Messi is bored and wonders how much difference he might make to an average NL side over the course of the season. All this while making the requisite Netflix doco. What's that? He turned us down for Brentwood? Why? Because his aim was to improve an 'average' NL side and his management team decided that having qualified for the play offs last season we have to be regarded as better than just average. Dream on or wait for London Shrimper's next post?

 

[SuperRonnieP]

Disappointing about Cashman, would have been a good signing for us. However, and I know it's still early, but some solid rumours about how we're going to fill the bleeding great hole in the middle of our defence would be welcome.

 

[LeedsSUFC]

Losing two targets to Crawley and Halifax is a very poor start to the summer business.

 

[LennySUFC]

Justin talks the talk, let’s attack the season shame can’t act on it. Maher must be livid if walk if was him

Walk because we missed out on a player during the summer window? Seems reasonable.

 

[BEERMONSTER]

Playing Devils Advocate here but following on from the embargos, unpaid wages and signing whoever was left standing once we could sign anybody, this summer actually feels… calm. No crisis (so far), no panic.
The Club has decided on taking a more data-led approach to recruitment.
Not all Shrimpers are convinced, fair enough. It feels a bit slow, and in the National League, you expect signings to happen fast and based on the manager’s gut. The obvious concern is we miss out! We’re overthinking it.
But arguably there’s a plan, a structured approach, were looking at the numbers, making sure the player fits, trying to build a squad that lasts more than one season and recruit individuals that have potential resale profit.
It might take a bit longer. But after everything we’ve been through, maybe “slow and steady” is exactly what we need as annoying as that is to an impatience old bugg@& like myself!
Having said that if we don't get someone across the line soon the cats going to have to go into hiding

 

[Bazza the dog]

There is no upside to the existence of this thread other than it serves to feed the curiosity that is part of human nature. I am on here because I love the little snippets thrown at us by a few on here who are genuinely 'in the know' about these matters but also because it is vaguely satisfying when the odd rumour does come true.

Of all the threads on SZ this one is one of the most popular. It is here to serve the interests of those who feast on rumours as well to satisfy the longing to be among the first to know. Those are unquestionably my motives. At my age I should be patient and perhaps take a month off SZ. I could then check the BBC site every week for news of new signings or perhaps just wait until the first friendly of the season when I could check off the new names in the line up.

But that is not me. I do not want to be patient; if we sign Cashman or anyone else I want to know yesterday, and, should the deal fall through, I need to know asap. As for KM's strange obsession with security that seems to overlook the fact there is little or no secrecy in football. By the time London Shrimper shares his news with us it will already have been known to anyone in football with reasonable connections, especially in our own league. How many people is that? Two hundred? More?

Keep the rumours coming. I remain a thrill seeker despite my age. Yes, I should know better but I still can't wait and neither can many others. I want to read that Messi is bored and wonders how much difference he might make to an average NL side over the course of the season. All this while making the requisite Netflix doco. What's that? He turned us down for Brentwood? Why? Because his aim was to improve an 'average' NL side and his management team decided that having qualified for the play offs last season we have to be regarded as better than just average. Dream on or wait for London Shrimper's next post?

There is nothing wrong with discussing potential targets of course, but just because you "want to know yesterday" and others ego, I don't think we should be plastering potential business on socials, when nothing has been signed.

As I mentioned before, our club Manager has publicly voiced the opinion that this is not helpful but still the same old people are posting club business and for me it's anything but helpful.

 

[Hadleigh-shrimper]

Walk because we missed out on a player during the summer window? Seems reasonable.

No because our data driven owners didn’t back the manager. Shiv out

 

[Jack_23]

Justin talks the talk, let’s attack the season shame can’t act on it. Maher must be livid if walk if was him

oh do me a favour I’m pretty sure he has done more than just talk the talk. We’ve publicly missed out on one player and the fan base goes into meltdown bloody 13th June. Everyone chill out we will be more then ready to go come pre season/ first game of season .

 

[Smiffy]

There is no need for data on Cashman. A quick look at freely available stats and video and perhaps a few scouting visits is enough to see the bloke is more than capable at this level and possibly above. Dagenham Kev could have seen this, let alone a room of scouts, analysts and big data. If we have lost out on him due to the data saying no or not being immediately available, then that’s very poor indeed and very costly. Lessons need to be learned very quickly or we will be stuck in oblivion forever.

 

[OrangeyBrown]

Where's this idea come from that the Cashman deal was stalled because of data?

Data in football is used primarily as a filter, to narrow down the list of players you need to scout in person. It's often the first thing you do during a recruitment process, not a last second scramble.

Not only that, but data doesn't really take time to get. It's just there, on the data platform. It'd take a matter of minutes to draft up any data you want on a player.

It's far more likely that Cashman's agent intentionally stalled the deal in order to check for other suitors. Normal stuff, no? It's not just us that can slow down a deal, and it's in an agent's best interests to do so to get the best deal for their client.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

Justin talks the talk, let’s attack the season shame can’t act on it. Maher must be livid if walk if was him

Have you changed your pills?

 

[Hadleigh-shrimper]

Have you changed your pills?

I think I’m right to be annoyed, losing out on a top player. Be stuck in this division for ever.

 

[londonblue]

All this talk of league status.
If we had offered him more money than the team in question he would have signed.

You don't know that for sure. It might be that you'd have to pay substantially more, in which case we would have to compromise our budget and potentially squad cohesion. It's always more complicated than we would like.

 

[Jai]

I think that the w*lly waving competitions about we`ve got more fans than others needs a thread of it`s own. I`m sure players don`t look at average gates to make a decision on signing for a club. We have to get out of the mindset that because we are a well supported club that players are lining up to sign for us. I hope that our process of signing players doesn`t take too long by analysing to death, data, etc... and through many DD processes we are missing out on primary targets, not for the first time. Now I know last season was different totally, however, now we have no excuses. It is clearly obvious that we haven`t got a massive budget to sign players, even if that hasn`t been transmitted to us, but it is apparent. No need to panic, for now as their is plenty of time, but players I imagine will be back early July for pre season, it`s only a few weeks away. I hope by then that we will have added 2 or 3 players. We don`t want to get in the panic mode and end up with a couple of players that we regret in the future. Let`s see how this plays out.

Agreed. Our fans obsession with crowds is borderline weird. Crawley at the moment are more attractive than us. So are Fleetwood, Salford, Stevenage and Colchester. They are all league clubs and we are not. Until we get back to the EFL that won't change, and we will continue to miss out on players to those sorts of clubs.

 

[dusterman]

Justin talks the talk, let’s attack the season shame can’t act on it. Maher must be livid if walk if was him

People have intimated on SZ that they may walk while stock is high. Can’t see it myself he bleeds blue but he knows it’s him who cops it if we don’t perform next season.

 

[Colchester and proud!]

Er, no it didn’t! We were 1,000 up on them on average. Something has gone awry with the calculation of Oldham’s average on FootballWebPages’ NL attendances page. I’m guessing that’s where you looked?

Oldham’s average was around 6,000 going into the last game - on FWP and everywhere else. We were 1,000 + ahead. One attendance of 10,000 in their final match does not add 2,000 to your average over 23 matches!

If you click to see their game by game attendances there were loads with 4k and 5k attendances. We certainly had a higher average than them last season.

Yes I did they obviously got it wrong somewhere!

 

[annie1954]

Agreed. Our fans obsession with crowds is borderline weird. Crawley at the moment are more attractive than us. So are Fleetwood, Salford, Stevenage and Colchester. They are all league clubs and we are not. Until we get back to the EFL that won't change, and we will continue to miss out on players to those sorts of clubs.

Just tell supporters of those clubs you have mentioned that Southend United are a big club they will fall over laughing at you

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

Justin talks the talk, let’s attack the season shame can’t act on it. Maher must be livid if walk if was him

Jeez. This is how the transfer game works. It's the same every year. A highly rated player has a few clubs after him. He would normally go to the club in the higher League, and/or the one that offers the most salary. And don't forget, agents are nearly always involved, trying to squeeze the maximum for them and the player. Players talk. Can you imagine if a player comes in to Southend, and tells some players that he's on more than them? After all some of our players have gone through. They didn't walk when not being payed, etc. So Justin and COSU can't break the wage structure. Signing players within our wage budget is a case of throwing darts until one or more stick. We are going to miss out on good players. I'm sure we will still sign a few as well. Just the fact we were in for Cashman, shows intent from Justin and COSU.