O’Toole Was Too Expensive

John-Joe O’Toole this week signed for League 2 rivals Northampton Town, we were all aware of Phil Brown’s interest in bringing him to Southend though but the midfielder proved too costly.

O’Toole’s 15 goals for Bristol Rovers weren’t enough to save them from League 2 relegation last season and following this he was always destined to move on, even more so after being named in the League 2 PFA Team of the Year.

This led to a couple of meetings with Brown with our manager admitting as much in an interview in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo.

From these meetings it soon became apparent to Brown that O’Toole’s wage demands were beyond what we could match and he wasn’t prepared to break our wage structure to sign him, which is definitely the way it should be as no player is worth going down a road that leads to others following and will only end in tears.

We’ll all know that O’Toole would’ve been a great signing but only at the right price.