"Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has drawn up an £80m wishlist, which includes Tottenham's Luka Modric, Barcelona playmaker Thiago Alcantara, FC Porto defender Rolando and Real Madrid midfielder Sami Khedira." (Source: the BBC football website, gossip pages) One can fully understand why this is merely a wish-list. Having had a bid for Moddy of £40 million turned down in the Summer, and having been told by Levy in no uncertain terms that Moddy is not for sale "at any price," AVB is going to have his work cut-out buy all those top players for a mere £80 million. Good luck with that, pal. Let us know how you get one, eh
Only player they'd have a chance of signing is Rolando. Modric - We all know Levy's stance. Thiago - (In my opinion) the future best centre midfielder in the world, unbelievable talent and Barca would be foolish to sell at any price. Khedira - Why on earth would he leave Madrid for Chelsea?
How's he going to buy the rest with only 5mil left after getting Modders(who would be mad to leave Spurs atm and ofc Levy not selling).
It looks as though the hack media is already revving up the column inches with its "Moddy to Chelesa" stories, ahead of the January transfer window. Let's hope Moddy comes out early this time with a firm statement that he's staying put, to put an end to circus. The last thing we want is another concerted effort from the Russian playboy loser to unsettle our squad.
Journalism clearly isn't their forte and, now it appears, neither is economics. What was their best subject at school, finger painting?!?
It's very rare for clubs to be able to buy great players from clubs above them in the pecking order. Villas Boas have a look through teams like Villa & Liverpool they may have what you are looking for; plus of course they may have a vacancy soon just like \Chelsea.
Cynical bid for Van Persie, perhaps? That's a presumption of Chelsea's tactics, and a sly hint for 'Arry...
No manager...with the following exceptions: Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Kenny Dalglish, Rafa Benitez
I believe he only mentioned Adam the day after the window shut and only to say that he failed with a last minute bid, not that I'm excusing him because he does do it. Defoe is probably the most obvious one he's done at Spurs.
The majority of players he's asked for an opinion of, we don't sign. Nobody asked any of the aforementioned managers their opinions of a player, they just stated they wanted them - and were happy to break as many rules as possible to do so.
Liverpool were publicly courting Adam long before our last minute attempt to gazump him - Ian Holloway aired his frustrations about it at the time.
Oh come on. Firstly, his agent would have known about the last minute offer anyway. Secondly, Holloway had already said that Adam didn't want to sign a new contract and wanted to leave long before any mention of our interest. Thirdly Adam was kicking and stamping a long time before the window shut and it was only after it was closed that he really knuckled down again with no distractions.
Blackpool wanted to sell Adam to us, Lidls. They protested that he'd already been unsettled by Liverpool, before we declared any interest.
I don't think any article would claim that AVB or any official at the club gave them this information with Chelsea's permission. The premise of most transfer articles is that the author has been given inside information from a source, in other words it's been leaked to them. Not that I disagree with you that it's totally unbelievable, of course.
The thing about declaring an interest in players at non-native clubs is that, frankly, it doesn't work anywhere near as well as it does when doing so with native clubs - for the simple reason that, for example, the Spanish sports media is focused on Barca and Real first, so any interest from the Premier League is considered secondary (the same goes for Bayern in Germany, Juve and the Milan clubs in Italy, or the Old Firm north of the border) Any attempt at unsettling a player via the media won't be the top story, or the one that is repeated day after day, because a Premier League club is to the Spanish/Italian press what a public approach from (no disrespect intended) Newcastle is in the English press - it's a link, but won;t get the prominence or the repeat coverage. And that's how these things work - which the MUPLC trolls on here during the summer failed to grasp when crowing "What about the time Giggs was linked to Inter in 1993?" - it's not a single story on one day, it's a constant barrage of them every day for days, weeks or (in the case of Chelsea with Modric) months, a privilege only given to the clubs deemed top of the pile.
I think one of these hack journos should make up a wish-list for Harry. Some like:- "Harry has drawn up a £40 million wish-list, with the likes of David Villa, RvP, Ashley Cole and Tevez topping his list." It wouldn't be any more unrealistic than the one drawn up by the hacks for AVB.
