Are you serious!!! Bale is not important to us????? Levy would accept a mere £35 million for him, even if he was for sale?????
He didn't say that he wasn't important to us though HIAG, only that he's not that important. He clearly believes that we have more important players, like Modric, for example. He's entitled to believe that £35m is a fair price, even if we don't agree with him. It would be the joint 13th highest fee of all time, alongside Aguero and Fabregas. Plus Andy Carroll!
Forgetting on the pitch performances for a moment, his stock has risen considerably over the last 18 months, he's already one of the poster boys for the British Olympic football team and because he is British he will be a media darling for years to come. He's invaluable to our future, increasing our fanbase and therefore revenue.
Fair points, PNP. I'm so used to being wound-up by Jayram that I mostly likely saw only bad things in his comments. I'm big enough to admit that, on this occasion, I may have been wrong, and, if I was, I apologise whole-heartedly for it.
Exactly! Well put. Bale is one of THE most important players for us, for all the reasons you state. He is also one of the reasons why the younger talent will want to come to our academy, rather than that of Arsenal or Chelsea, etc. And he is a direct statement of our intentions for the future of our club, and where we see ourselves in the decade to come. £35 million does not even come close to compensating us for all of that.
Bale has actually created the 2nd highest number of goalscoring opportunities in the league behind David silva!
Just on a more contemplative note to add a historical glance to the question (I've noticed that this thread is showing the tell-tale symptoms of a full-blown Circus of Wummery), how many home-grown players have actually made it over in Spain? Woodgate, Owen, Mcmanamanmanamanaman, our very own Vinny Samways..... Not exactly a role-call of success. In fact, it could be argued that the move to Spain more or less ruined these players' otherwise promising careers. Off the top of my head, I believe the ONLY British player to play for Barca in recent memory was Gary Lineker, who played for them before he saw the light and moved to Spurs. He actually did quite well there, scoring 40+ goals in around 100 apps. However, the BIG difference between Lineker at that stage and Bale at this stage is that Lineker had already been playing at the highest level for a good 7 years, and only moved at the age of 26, having already scored well over 200 goals for Leicester and Everton. As good as Gareth now is, I don't think his professional shoulders are yet broad enough to cope with this sort of move. Just some thoughts...
A goal and an assist today. Am I right in thinking that Wales don't have a game midweek? Would be nice if Bale didn't come back knackered for once.
Mark Hughes moved to Barca at a youngish age, was terrible, flopped and returned to United 2 years later for less money... Hmmmmmmmm
On a separate point entirely, whilst I fully appreciate where everyone's coming from, I disagree with the constant usage of Andy Carroll and his 35m millstone as some sort of logical benchmark via which other players can be evaluated. The Carroll transfer was clearly (to all but Pool fans) an act of desperate lunacy. His price tag put unnecessary pressure on his shoulders as a player, and introduced the EPL as a whole to entirely new depths of insanity visa-vis the market "value" of English players. As if being born Anglo-Saxon adds an automatic VAT to your actual cost. I'd prefer that it be confined to the asylum that it deserves to be confined to. As the transfer itself made no sense, I think it makes equally little sense using it to make sense of the sense of other transfers. Yup.
Interesting WY, I didn't know that. I think a broader question needs to be asked though: Forget La Liga. How many British players have moved ANYWHERE and actually done well for themselves? Answers may be submitted on the back of a postage stamp...
A certain David Beckham played in Spain and very nearly played for Barca and didn't do to badly. But all in all British players don't seem to adapt to overseas football.
This is the problem that Arsenal have discovered for themselves. Tippy-tappy football is great, provided that all the other teams in your league are going to over-indulge in tippy-tappy football, too. Unfortunately for Whinger, though, all the other teams employ rough, burly lads in defensive to kick seven-bells out of light-weights like Meerkat and Walnut, so that their pretty-boy tippy-tappy football ends up looking like so much mincing around on the field.
They play good football. However, without RVP, they don't have anybody to finish off all their pretty approach work. Their defence is still a shambles when put under pressure, too.