Levy drives a hard bargain. He managed to negotiate a deal worth £12mill from Udinese for Dos Santos but the bugger didn't want to move their and tried to hold out for Sevilla who only offered £3mill We're not in a rush to sell Pienaar so I'd imagine if we did get a winger in, he'd be sent out on loan to try and raise his value, like we usually do.
I'd take Pienaar and some money for Dembele. Pienaar good and young. I think he'd be a great addition to our team, filling the Murphy role once the painting in Danny's attic stops working. Frankly, I'm beginning to think Dembele has reached his potential for us ... he's good, but he's not great. I think Ruiz has a bigger upside for Fulham in the long run. Talk of Ba coming joining Fulham is crazy. Newcastle is a bigger team than Fulham, as are Stoke, Everton, Villa, the big five and Spurs, to name a few. St James Park holds 53,000 people, plus silverware. Second, Ba is a star player right now,and I know because he's been AWESOME for my fantasy football team!!!! Ba is staying at Newcastle until Chelsea or Manchester City come calling.
I still find it hard to believe that Stoke paid around £18 million for both Crouch and Palacios! Levy must be Derren Brown in disguise.
Haha, meant to mention Crouch. Palacios for £8mill seems about right but I don't know how we made a profit on Crouch
You want £20m for two players who cost you, what, £4m combined? And they don't even play for you?! Levy certainly does run a tight ship! They're good players but we have almost too many players who play where they do, and neither are as good as Dembele. Even if they did hit the heights they did before they joined you, they're still at the wrong end of their careers. Dembele is young and can only improve. He's also doing well in our system, playing week-in, week-out, I don't think he'll want to sit on the bench for you guys.
I'd like to think that Big Mart has spoken to Dembele and outlined the facts to him: 1. regular first team action. 2. progressive improvement as a club Plus many others, don't have time to write them! LOL In all seriousness he would move for money as I don't think he'd play much. This may also affect his international game time too. I hope he stays. I think he's a potential future captain of the club. IMO
I certainly don't want Dembele to go. Like Robes I'm really enjoying the Ruiz, Frie and 2Ds midfield attack and think that this can only get more powerful as the season goes on (subject to injuries of course). Didn't Jol say when he arrived that he was going to build his team around Dembele? I can't see him letting him go yet, and certainly not to Spurs.
Yeah exactly my thoughts as well penguin, here Dembele can be our talisman if he wants to. In contrast at Spurs the brutal reality is that he'd be a squad player. He plays Van der Vaart's position so would probably be nothing more than a back up, as he's not in the same class Van der Vaart in my opinion.
Yeah, pretty much but the Kranjcar deal was more complicated because it involved us writing off some of the money Portsmouth owed us for Defoe and Kaboul... who we also took back later Levy's a shrewd business man and knows that sometimes when you name a price the other club are dumb enough to agree. Remember Keane's deal? He got £20mill out of Liverpool and bought him back for £13mill 7 months later. He got £18mill for Carrick, £30mill for Berba, £10mill for Crouch and a reported £10mill off Chelsea for our Sporting Director Arnesen with an agreement that they couldn't sign any of our players for 2 years.
Agreed Craving. He needs to score goals (Like Van der Vaart does) but if he can start doing that then his usefulness and value go up and, unfortunately, the chances of us keeping him will go down. However, he's not that player yet and I can't see him leaving this month.
Dembele is going nowhere. He is the new Murphy. Jol is bringing back to Murphy's position once Danny is off the game. He did that both at Arsenal and Charlton games. And is not a bad idea!
I think this will all boil down to whether or not Dembele comes out and says he wants to join Tottenham. There's no doubt that Jol wants to keep him here, but if Dembele was to hand in a transfer request and with only 18 months left on his contract we would have to negotiate. I think him signing a new contract will fully depend on where we finish this season. Jol has aspirations to take us into the top 6 and if we finish around 8th this season I can see him staying long term, if we were to finish in and around 15th then he may well seek a transfer.
Finishing between 6th and 9th is do-able in my opinion. The team is being moulded around Dembele to an extent (already mentioned before) and I think he would be foolish to move. Lets not give it too much attention as we all don't want it too happen. As a slightly more left field approach why don't we start a post with 'Dembele puts pen to paper on a new 20 year contract'? COYW
I'm with Bandy. If we finish in the bottom half and Spuds come in with an offer then he may consider things, certainly if they're in the CL. If he signs a new contract then certainly we'll at least get a decent transfer fee. I'm confident he'll stick around, at least for another season.
