I don't know why, but I get the feeling Wilcox is rather enjoying himself telling Liverpool (and West Ham) where to go.
When are Liverpool going to realise that when we say £50m, which we’ve been saying is the price from the start, is what the price is?
I honestly can't see West Ham meeting our valuation of JWP. Before anyone accuses me of jinxing it: if they do, great, that's £40mill in the bank. I think Liverpool will, eventually and reluctantly, meet our asking price for Lavia.
I've been calling for Saints to take this stance with transfers for a long time (not so much under Gao as we needed the money). But it seemed impossible as players would just force moves. Which makes me wonder why the likes of Lavia & JWP don't seem to be kicking up a fuss, and more importantly, whether they will start trying to force a move if we are still holding firm toward the end of the window.
It surely isn't that hard to get them onboard with this stuff. So, xxx, you are looking to move on? We see you as an X million player. Does that sound about right? Okay, well find someone willing to pay that and you can go. I mean all players have huge egos, right?
What was Liverpool's initial bid for Lavia? Wasn't it worth more, just with add-ons? Has it really taken them a whole week to still not match our asking price? They are wasting a lot of their own time here.
If we're using The Times as the source (and Paul Joyce is pretty much gospel on Liverpool) First bid: £37m Second bid: £41m
They clearly think they can bully us enough, or unsettle Lavia enough that he throws his toys out of the pram. It's a **** way to do business, and I hope Chelsea come in with a proper offer and gazump them as a result.
We know Liverpools favourite approach is to unsettle the player and then make the offer. No doubt that's the play once again having already sold it to Lavia weeks ago. Now with the added threat that they will look at other options if we don't accept. Whether that's to try and scare us into selling or to get Lavia to agitate for the move.
If it happens I think ‘we’ would just walk away from it. The way seems to be that if a player wants to come then we’ll work on it but we don’t get into bidding wars and if chelsea or someone else came in and just shoved 50m down we’d prob walk away and find someone else tbh. I get the feeling there isn’t much interest from anyone else though. Chelsea are still going in for caicedo so may move on if don’t get him, would Lavia want to go there knowing he was a back up choice? If so then feel like klopp wouldn’t want him at the club anyway. Given been no real official interest then atm lfc do hold the cards in that regard, although saints obv in driving seat as under no pressure to sell
Not sure Chelsea are willing to pay 100m for Caicedo (rightly). If Brighton stick by that, I can absolutely see them coming in for Lavia at 50m. He's far better than half a Caicedo, and Shields is a big fan. For the sake of 5m or so, Liverpool are being a bit daft tbh.
Weren’t Liverpool fans laughing hysterics at arsenal’s 40m + £1 offer for Suarez. They are doing something quite similar
If we do hold firm and let Liverpool walk away then it could help speed up other negotiations such as JWP. West Ham may realise we aren't bluffing and either pay up or properly move on to someone else. I still think Lavia and probably JPW will go, but image having those 2 as our starting midfield in the Championship.
I can see late in the window, a club meeting our fee, however, I can also see JWP turning down a move…. Longer it goes on, more I think that he doesn’t want to move …. Just a hunch…. How good would it be to see him back to his best and have a season of the old JWP….