http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/tran...-leandro-damiao-will-only-leave-internacional Internacional president Giovanni Luigi has declared that landing striker Leandro Damiao will prove to be a costly affair. The 22-year-old striker has caught the eye of several clubs in Europe after establishing himself as one of Brazil's most prolific strikers, with 32 goals so far scored in all competitions this season. Porto are understood to be after Damiao as they look for a replacement for Radamel Falcao with less than a week to run on the transfer window. Earlier in the week, Luigi refused to rule out the possibility of selling the striker, but he has now made it clear the player will not be sold on the cheap. "I will only sell him in case an abnormal offer comes along. Right now, we understand it is still soon for him to leave. Damiao's price has gone up every week, after every game," Luigi told Radio Gaucha.
Perhaps if we'd been sensible and made a respectable offer about 2 months ago, we might have him already. As usual, we were interested, but played our "right, we'll make u sweat till deadline day and pretend we're not interested anymore until then" tactic. Again, it's going to backfire by the looks of things.
I have to agree. It looks like Levy has shot himself in the foot over this one. We didn't seem to be far apart on price a couple of months ago; but it look like a dead duck, now. Levy doesn't do "abnormal offers"
There's nothing wrong with good sensible business. But levy's a little too arrogant sometimes. He should have foreseen this summers potential problems after the nightmare market in January. Paying 15 mill or so for a striker now, is peanuts. The ridiculous amounts of money that average players were purchased for, as well as the wages, should have been an indication of future business. All we had to do was stump up a few extra million... Which we have right? Supposedly... Bareing in mind what the CL is worth to the club, the problems we have with wages and the over inflated prices; how can that extra few million not be worth it to get a player that is very highly rated and won't break the bank. Sometimes the man needs to swallow his pride and realize that not every deal is one that dellboy and Rodney would be proud of!! Leandro is a realistic target. One we are all excited about, especially after seeing how good sandro is. Itll be a real shame if we miss this, especially considering our link with internacional. Every day that passes now means we're paying more and more, for any player. It's very frustrating.
It depends, firstly, on what is meant by "abnormal offer" . However, it doesn't have the ring of anything we're liable to pay. Also, of course, Porto are reportedly very keen. They have the money - CL football - and he would be going to a place where they speak his native tongue. Hope I'm wrong, but this sounds like it's not gonna happen. All we can hope for is that Internacional price him out of the market, all interest evaporates. Porto find somebody else, then maybe we could pick him up in January. - Long shot, though.
i'm sure the Brazilian's are fully aware of the European market and the prices being paid. they will obviously jumping on the band wagon. therefore "abnormal" is likely to be £25 mill + now, i would have thought. we offered 12 a while ago, perhaps if we'd offered £16-18mill and let the player see out his season, we might be sitting in a different position right now. Porto definitely offers him many benefits, but premiership football an improved wage and the recommendation from sandro could be enough. i think you could well be right with your final point NSIS. however, this isn't going to help us in the first half of the season and we're running out of time. we might have to bite the bullet and put in a very good offer. we're very limited on potentials now. I, for one, would not be p*ssed off if we paid £22-25 mill and he wasn't quite what we hoped for. It'd be disappointing, but like i've previously stated we have no choice as there are so many other factors against us. It's not like the days of ramos any more. there were many panic buys 3 or so years ago, which we've learnt from. The guy simply cannot do any worse that what we've witnessed in front of goal in the last year.
Another possibility is Sandro & Gomes are already here and established as first team players- they might be able to persuade him if it came down to a choice of teams.
Yes, all available information at the time, seemed to suggest that a bid of around £16-18mm plus an agreement to let him play the domestic season out could well have done the trick. I'm no expert on the standard of Brazilian domestic football, but £25mm is one hell of a lot of money for a guy who's unproven in European football. I'm pretty certain that, no way Levy will pay that - or anything close.
yep,you're totally right. but what else do we do? wehave 2 options. we pay something reasonably high (16-25mill) (which every striker is going to cost that fits our requirements) or we risk missing CL football again. (potentially even finishing lower in the premiership as everyone else is strengthening). i'm now in the frame of mind where i'm just not bothered, i just want to see a srtiker. but then again it's not my money.
This is our problem all over though, isn't it? By the time they are anywhere near 'proven' in European football, they become too expensive for us anyway, or they wanna play for Chelsea (Modric), Liverpool (Carroll), Man City(Aguero, Dzeko), Arsenal(Gervinho) or Man U(Berbatov). Until we get the stadium to enable us to compete somewhat on wages, we'll have to take the risk on 'unproven' young players, grab the excess from other clubs (VDV, Adebayor), or grab older players who might wish to see out their career with us (Gallas, Parker). There has to a point where some risk is taken imho.
you've just summed up exactly what i've been trying to say. great post lockstock. unfortunately the risk isn't just with the unproven ability in Europe. it also comes at quite a price nowadays. it's a massive catch 22 and we either need to show some balls, or sit back and accept mediocrity. if we choose the latter, it could ultimately end up in a huge team buliding task. - that's what' frightening.
The original link is Goal.com, so it must be at least 20% accurate. I`d love Leandro at Spurs, why we didnt pay the asking price and snap him up is a mistake.
So if we win tomorrow it will be a victory not only for Spurs but for honest football values- I think
Thanks SpursRoo. It's unfortunate that we were able to show balls when we bought the likes of Bentley, but we are now hesitant about Damiao!!?? Really?!? I also remember we were trying to get Carroll and were looking at a big fee for him. Is this any more of a risk?? I think we have a good chance of getting the fourth spot this season, but it really does depend on what happens in this window. If Cahill, Diarra, Parker, Damiao come in and Jenas, Palacios, Crouch or Pav, Hutton, Bentley and Bassong perhaps go out, we have a serious squad that can do the necessary job. Anything less and I see us being nailed on for 5th or 6th behind Arsenal and or Liverpool.
exactly! and we seem to perform much more due diligence now. I think the "panic buys" under Ramos are always sat the back of Levy's mind. There's always some sort of risk when buying players, but it has to be taken now or we will lose bale any maybe others come the end of the season. That's an even bigger risk! but at least at the end of the season if this does happen, we'll do more than just "recoup" what we spend now. it's got to be worth a go. the fans know the score regarding wages/stadium etc, but we have to be very very careful in the next few days that our lack of "risk" doesn't causeus to take 5 steps backwards. Adebayor's a good addition. if he knuckles down, we've got something here. but what if he gets injured? we're back to square 1 if we dont get someone like damiao as well.
So thats our season sorted, might as well not play the games as we're going to end up 5th or 6th behind Arse and Pool then, as there is no way those four will be with us in the next five days. IF we keep Modric, and get our defence fit, then play to our strengths and with confidence, 4th is achievable - not probable but acheivable. Liverpool have spent well, very well, and have no European distractions BUT they are beatable. Arse are just beatable by anyone at the present (don't write them off if they bring in the right 2 or 3 players though) The Chavs, the red and blue Mancs are in a different stratosphere to us though. We can do it again, with our meagre funds. My main concern is if we get nothing tomorrow, the players and fans confidence will be shot to **** and that could lead to us having a very bad season.
Your main concern is the confidence of the fans & players. Would that be like the confidence that you express in Spurs on this forum. Excuse me for laughing.
If we spend £20m+ on an unproven player and he turns out to be a failure, you will get very few people on here saying "glad we took a chance". There are also a lot of people who seem to know exactly who we have bid for, how much we have offered and why they turned us down. I wonder if they would like to let us know their reliable sources for such information? One common factor even among those who dissaprove of Levy's transfer dealings is that he is a good businessman, and in which case how come everybody knows what has gone on behind closed doors. It couldn't be that you're using theory to fit the very limited facts could it?
