We go through this every ****ing season. Repeating transfer gossip, mostly generated by bored journalists or agents looking for a few quid or two. And then getting excited, deflated or agitated by it all. And all the time, ignoring the fact that the club's are working 24/7 to make deals happen. We're our own worst enemies!
Agree completely, on both counts. The M'Vila situation still baffles me. That was an absolute no-brainer of a deal.
I reckon it was a wages thing. M'vila would have been talking 70k upwards. Ndong will have been on no more than 40k i reckon. It's always wages with us.
Agree with the second paragraph, disagree with the second. In today's market, he is every bit a £25m player imo. The lad is very, very young, and held his own in the Premier league last season, he was one of our best performers behind only Pickford and Defoe in my opnion. There are not many 23-year-olds kicking about with as much EPL experience as him. This year he is continuing to show that he is one of our best players. Plus, he has something which can't be taught - natural energy in abundance. I think I'm right in saying he's our only(?) player to have played every game so far this season, and he was still bossing it last night.
I'm not sure he would have been. He flew to the UK of his own accord coz he wanted to push through a deal so much. We didn't even pick up the phone to negotiate.
That was the window before though, we had a pre agreement after but M'vila turned it down for a new contract with Kazan. That tells me they give him a better offer and we had the chance to match it and we wouldn't. That's what I think happened anyway.
The M'Vila deal, or lack of, was tantamount to suicide. A player above our level who was available for peanuts who used his own time and money to fly over here and be rejected. Our big issues last season were missing any CM with any influence for the whole season, even if he hadn't made the difference we could have sold for a huge profit, or had head and shoulders the best player in this league bossing games. It was a monumentally short sighted **** up, as per.
I honestly think there was something else, something kept secret, like he was in the back seat of AJ's car, that prevented the deal. Otherwise it was a no brainer.
Gutted if we lose ndong but if Sunderland gets there money back short will sell. Simple as that. Anyway at least we got rodwell and piss head Gibson right lads
