Not too worried. It's not like we have handed out a 70k a week contract. And if we do it is because we are a premier league team. Anyone gets up in arms about not matching his wages is more than welcome to negotiate their own 70k a week contract. With Roma.
It was Congleton who screwed up with Alvarez. I know a fair bit about it from a contact I used to have. Basically the club doctor (Dr Rehman) advised against signing Alvarez because of a problem with his left knee until Alvarez had had an operation to correct it. Congleton waited until the doctor was away (ironically having a knee op himself) before pushing it through. Alvarez later broke down with an injury to his right knee, caused by the problem with his left knee putting additional stress on his right knee. Dr Rehman ended up leaving the club over it and has worked for the FA since as part of the England medical team at all age groups. Later Donald and Methven tried to sue him to recover the cost of the transfer from him after the court of arbitration in sport found against us and ordered us to pay the transfer fee, costs and wages/bonuses due. It's telling that one of the first things KLD did after taking over was to drop that court case. Congleton was the same bloke who signed Rodwell but didn't put in a relegation clause on his wages, but allowed Defoe to go for nothing if we went down. He was a bullshitter of the first order, but some how bluffed his way to work at Celtic and Leicester after leaving us.
This reminds me of folk putting a bet on good odds of your own team to be relegated. If it does happen, at least you make money out of it. If we end up paying millions for this player, even if he turns out ****, at least we'd have been promoted.
in wonder if this means we’ll see them add a striker of note as well I’d be going for Clarke on loan to, better than Watson and mundle is out for a while. Gets him some games under belt for Ipswich’s championship 25/26 campaign, honestly think we’d be stupid not to enquire considering the 2 club thing. Yes we’ll have a good number of loans but so what, we’ve got a good squad of contract players, Lee fee becomes permanent if we go up, signing isidor at 4m is a given the only one to convince is Mepham who would arguably only become permanent if we go up anyway
why? I’m sure the contracts our current crop have are highly incentivised and include an increase if we’re promoted if we don’t go up and anyonr grumbles about le fees salary from now until the summer they are more than welcome to try and acquire a contract from Roma
It’s a fancy way of saying we’re paying a loan fee mate. We’ll be doing the exact same for samed and mepham
We'll not be getting Clarke in, mate, not from what's coming out of Ipswich. Partly them saying he's part of the squad, but I think also letting him come here on loan is an admission of a mistake. If it was to get him over an injury, it might be ok, but to send one of your big signings back to his original club because he's not fitted in properly looks bad.
There's that too, still think Le Bris has far better contacts in terms of former players than Mowbray. Off the top of my head was only Brereton Diaz really
It actually gets worse, believe it or not. The whole saga cost us as a club over £20 million in having to pay Inter the original £10.5m, interest, loss of earnings to Alvarez of nearly £5m, money to Velez Sarsfield who he joined after leaving us and legal costs. On top of that it damaged our reputation, both with Inter and the football medical community. It goes to show what a cluster **** of a club we were then.
If this lad signs I think it says a lot about where we are. Firstly,it demonstrates real ambition,which reinforces the information we've been getting under KLD and KS. Secondly,it indicates a confidence in RLB,the like of which we've not really seen towards previous head coaches. I know TM was backed with Dack,but it was hardly on the same scale as this move.
Don't think it's learning from mistakes, more the team arguably wasn't nearly as ready to realistically have a go at promotion then. Jobe not player he is now, Rigg still to emerge, strikers not signed or still too raw. So no point burning money on this type of signing then.
