Forster is one of those rare occasions that I genuinely wish him the best as he leaves us. Can be fantastic on his day. No idea what went on behind the scenes and I find it very strange that he was dropped even after some stellar performances this season. I personally think he’s better than McCarthy but there isn’t much in it.
Should have worn football boots instead of diving boots at Wembley all those years ago (5 years was it? ****ing hell)
Liam Delap was being linked at the same time as Bazunu a few weeks ago. Perhaps we’re still looking for a permanent move for a striker first
Talk about being completely screwed over by Brexit / the work permit system Sangare from PSV is now linked with a 30m move to Chelsea, Liverpool or Man United. We tried to sign him for something like 9m a few years back and were blocked. Although bafflingly I thought it was just due to the fee not being 10m or above and then we signed Diallo for more than that. I assume there was more ok it than that - perhaps there was a release clause of 9m and the permit rules wouldn’t allow us to overpay to get around them …
Yeah because we were faffing around basically. Probably trying to shave a few quid off the deal. Ended up with Diallo ffs. Should use this as an example at the beginning of every window to get our sh*t done sooner rather than later, even if that means losing a few extra bob.
All that is out there is the player says we were “a little slow”. But he is a football player and not likely clued into the situation. It seems like that lack of speed was connected to the work permit situation and the red tape. Which was the point I was making. I wouldn’t expect the average footballer to say that. Nor would I expect them to say “I actually really wanted to go there” in an interview after joining PSV So the suggestion of him rejecting us and us faffing around comes from - his pro-PSV interview a month after joining them? Not exactly reliable I’ll stick with my “if there was no concern over work permits we would have got him” view. And also with my view that if we suddenly increased our offer from an agreed valuation that would have caused questions to be asked But people are entitled to interpret the exact same information however they like
Big assumption that. I would imagine most players are quite eager to know what's going on with their transfer situations. But anyway, we're both guessing.
I mean clued into exactly how long a delay the new work permit regulations cause. I would be pretty confident he would have no idea how much of any delay was “admin red tape” vs “club dragging their heels”. I personally don’t think he would have a clue. And given the context of the interview it makes sense that he would make it sound like the latter
I’m sure it was discussed on TSP at some point, might have even been when Semmens came on. Would have to dig out the episode as my memory isn’t that good, but I’m sure it was a case of weird rules stopping Sangare coming rather than us being slow or skimping. I think the rules even got changed since then.
Yes this is what I thought. And as mentioned all I can find that suggests otherwise is in an interview from the player after he had joined another club. So massive pinch of salt Granted you could say the Semmens is just spinning a line. But he has always seemed pretty straight up and on the level in any interviews he has been in. I know who I would believe on a story on transfer admin between a premier league executive and a 23 year old football player who probably got his info from his agent, doesn’t speak English as a first language (so could be mistranslated/lost in translation) and couldn’t exactly say that he didn’t really want to join PSV …
You're probably right. Just seems strange that Sangare comes across as a little sour in the interviews. Genuine question: Any idea why we didn't have the same problem signing Salisu? I'm assuming Diallo was less complicated because he's French, but both Sangare and Salisu are African.
I would assume he is sour because he lost out on a premier league move and had to go to PSV I’d say it is safe to assume we would have paid him at least double and given him more of a platform My theory is that it was linked to transfer fee. I heard something about 10m being a cut off. I’m sure I saw that somewhere. And that is the part that is now gone I think. And as theorised above - we couldn’t arbitrarily increase the fee (especially if it was a clause which given how low it was it could have been) just to get round the regulations. They would see the original paperwork and the proposed fee. And Salisu was over the threshold so wasn’t subject to the rules
There is some calculation for work permits that is based on nationality/wages/fee paid/international caps/league they are coming from La Liga is probably ranked higher than Ligue 1 so that might have been the difference
Gotta love the transfer thread. Saw some recent activity so thought fair play, and then it's just a whole page discussing a transfer that never actually happened
This seems like it would be a good move on paper but as with most of these links if all three of those clubs bid that fee it is difficult to see us anywhere other than firmly being number 3 in the list. Perhaps the pitch of first team football because he will be behind Rice and Soucek at West Ham. But that still leaves palace who are basically signing all the players we should have been recently - Olise, Guehi etc (all is an exaggeration of course)
