The intial fee is being reported as approx. £1.6m plus add ons "up to" £2.4m - http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2012/07/elhamdaoui_set_for_fiorentina.php I think I know what you're going to say Bidley, and I'd agree - "where were we??".
It's looking very dodgy - http://whatculture.com/sport/sunderland-transfer-news-steven-fletcher-set-for-black-cats.php Pity, he could have brought his shirt with him and saved a few bob.
That said, I think Park ji-Sung is a great signing for them. Sadly, I think Hughes is building a team that will keep them out of relegation trouble and establish themselves for a long stay in the Premier League.
And at the price, which is reported to be £2m (at least as the initial down payment). Astute timing as well signing him just before they head out on an Asian tour.
Park is most definitely past it in my opinion. His win percentage for Utd when he was playing last season was awful, with Utd losing around 50% of the games he played in. Fergie has a good eye for knowing whether people have got it anymore or they haven't. If Park could still do a good job I'm sure Fergie would have kept hold of him, afterall Utd aren't exactly blessed with decent central midfielders.
Here's the latest gossip on Dempsey and others - http://www.westlondonsport.com/paper-talk/liverpool-want-to-sign-dempsey-from-fulham-for-6m/ There is no question that Liverpool have made formal enquiries but dredging up 'old' names as his replacement suggests that this is a made up story. The much stronger PL contenders are Arsenal, who are rumoured to be considering a bid of £7/8m. However that again is still all gossip no doubt on the back of RVP's move. My real purpose in posting though is about: * one 'old' name - Narsingh. Jol has made moves on him since back in January and I can't quite understand why there's absolutely no hint of us being interested at this time; * the comment in the article that Bristol City have refused to allow us to talk to Albert Adomah
To be fair, Jol knows him well, didn't he sign him twice? If he was worth getting surely Jol would be the first to get in there. I tend to agree, if he was as good as he's always been, Fergie wouldn't have let him go. Still, he's a solid signing (but I wouldn't want him at CC). Didn't Gignac have another injury breakdown? Or am I making that up?
Just for the record, two that we were interested in (well more than just interested, in that both had medicals/visits at Motspur Park) gone have elsewhere - * Yilmaz to Locomotiv for £5m plus £45k pw wages * Elia to Weder Bremen for £6m We were not the only ones closely involved of course. Indeed both players over the last 2/3 weeks have been touted around a number of PL, the Bundesliga and Serie A clubs.
All rumors about the market,but I am sure there will be a lot more movement over the next 7 days. will we be in the mix ?. Cottager your article re: Dempsey to Arsenal sounds good to me what 2/3mil + Arron Ramsey.and while we are on the subject,there must be money in the kitty, what with the sale of BZ, AJ,& DM wages saved,+ the payment made to the premiership clubs.
Saw this earlier, very disappointed, although it did feel that Elia was using us to get a better offer from Bremen. Still even getting one of these would have been fantastic. Surely we would have been a better option than Lokomotiv?
Probably the wage thing again. What does our highest earner get p/w? Can't be much more than £45k p/w, if at all...
Liverpool have just signed attacking midfielder Gaston Ramirez for £16m from Bologna. So I'd guess that's the rumours about them and Demps put to bed. If Demps is going to Arsenal, a trade involving Ramsey would be better than nothing. I've got this awful feeling however, that it might be Bendtner not Ramsey. My abiding preference, if he goes, is that it's abroad.
Barrios is probably off to Guangzhan - money !! Gignac, as Bidley said, had a horrendous injury and hasn't really played since. He's also on horrendous money - £60kpw !! Us fans never get to know for sure, but I'm fairly certain that when BZ signed his last contract with us he was on £40k pw, which made him our top earner. However some players (Danny Murphy and AJ for sure) had a clause in their contracts that 'no one could earn more', which meant an automatic hike in wages for them at the time. Nobody signed since then (for example Ruiz) has been given more, so I believe that is the current ceiling. The departure of BZ, DM and AJ has had the (unreported) tremendous advantage of breaking/removing that "crazy" contactual bind linking wages across players. "Crazy" in the sense that if the Club went over a limit for every £1 offerred they in fact had to pay £3 (hope that makes sense). I believe that's why the Club is now prepared to revise the ceiling to an individual player and why there is an offer of £50k per week on the table to Dembele. All of that said there remains an overall 'wage cap' - currently running at 64% of revenue. Therefore the Club will not, and rightly in my view, offer 'silly money' across the board. The old supply and demand principle inevitably plays its part but the Club is financially stable only because it pays a player (new or existing) on their affordable value.
I agree with not raising the wage cap but if Yilmaz accepted an offer of 45k p/w then surely we could have offered an equal amount? I'm sure he would have been more useful than Zamora and AJ, both of whom were on similar amounts of money.
This sort of conversation is what I love about this board. There can't be many others on here who have the same kind of grown up thoughtfulness to how the club runs its transfer policies and wage structures (Possibly Arsenal excepted). Great stuff and lots of interesting points from all.
I go along with that Bandit. While I argued the wisdom of the Club's wage policy, as was posted in another thread now that BZ, DM,AJ and Ray Lew have gone, the savings in the budget must total aound £160k per week. If some of that is offset for Riether and Petric plus, say new improved deals for Dembele, Dempsey and Hangeland, you would have thought the Club could still afford to stretch the purse stings a tad - if they really wanted a player. One aspect I didn't mention in my earlier thread was Agent's fees. We now know for definite in the case of Pog (who was a 'free agent') that his Agent was demanding, and paid, £1m by Reading. We've also touched on this in another thread and noted how sensitive MAF is to these kind of payments (evidenced by the Tigana/Martlet row and probably Crouch). Published figures showed that our ratio of Agent payments to player fees was among the lowest in the PL (I can't remember the exact figure but it was something like 9%). Obviously I've no way of knowing, but can't help but think this may have played a part in us not pushing harder for Yilmaz. His Agent was touting him around an awful lot of clubs.
Spoke to a respected insider last night who said "Demps will be gone by the end of the week, 2 clubs reported to accept the Fulham asking price of £6m+,lets wait and see if fact, or a red herring. Was also told that Jol wants to try a younger formation before heavily spending in this window,but will wait until Jan before splashing the cash. Problem ?,if we are treading water around the bottom,who of quality would want to join us.
