http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19945768 Ex-Arsenal and West Ham player tapping up Spurs star When the inevitable happens I hope Real don't go down the classless tapping up route ala Barca/Arsenal. Not good for the league IMO if it loses top quality players.
Oh please. As if Arsenal haven't tapped up a player before. It goes on all the time, that doesn't make it right though of course.
No Drogs, he is right. Arsenal are perfect and don't at all have a history of any wrongdoings or corruption.
Why are even in the same sentence as Barcelona when it comes to tapping up players? We are nowhere near as bad as the likes of Madrid,Barca and Man Utd. The Fabregas deal was a bit dodgy, but apart from that, when have we ever committed any 'misconduct' or any 'tapping up' when trying to buy players? Oh and we are not the club that got officially fined for tapping up a player. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/4596209.stm
Yeah, but as I said before we are not anywhere near as bad as some other clubs. Especially when speaking about it in public. Madrid and Barca are the worst. Man Utd in third. Like siad, not sure what we have done to be put in the same sentence as Barcelona when it comes to tapping up.
Of course not Super Jack. That was my point before COYG butted in. The way Barca tap up players via the media and through players is disgusting, like with Man U and Madrid. Chelsea are dodgy admittedly but when can anyone ever say we've used our players to try and unsettle others?
The only reason I'm not going to rise to this is because I know you too well, DL I'm not saying that Bale will never leave, but I do believe we'll get the best years out of him, and then sell him abroad, for a fortune when we are already on a high. The lad proved that he wants to play football in a team that will play to his strengths, which is why he choose to leave Saints for us, and not United. We stayed loyal to him when he was injured and then having a mare (remember when we never won a game that Bale started?), and he's repaying us by remaining loyal to us, signing a 5 year extension to his existing contract. One of the reasons why I hope that AVB can cut the grade with us, is because I feel that he can improve a lot of our young players, especially Bale, and I believe that Bale relishes the chance to work with AVB over a protracted period. When we get our new stadium, we will be set to become and remain a major force in European football, and Bale can become one of our all-time legends, up there with the likes of Hoddle, Gazza and Roberts, and perhaps even the likes of Greavsie and Blanchflower. We'll be looking to bring other great players in, not letting our best ones go. Yes, we let Modric go, but I never saw him staying long-term, anyway, and I think that Dembele will prove to be better than Modric, inside two seasons, with us.
HIAG this isn't a WUM. When I said "When the inevitable happens" I meant when Real eventually go after him, which to me seems inevitable especially when you consider the problems they are having with Ronaldo and other players like Di Maria who seem off the place. When (not if) Barca win La Liga this year, if Real don't win the CL expect major changes at that club from top to bottom, That will mean different transfer targets and a different way of going about business. The partnership you have with them makes it even more likely.
I expect a lot of clubs to come in for Bale in three seasons' time, when he has less than two years remaining on his contract, not just Real. No clubs will come in for him before then because (a) they know that we won't sell him, and (b) they won't be able to afford him. As he nears his contract, I fully expect us to offer him another lucrative extension and I fully expect him to remain with us.
If he is as good as he is now or better in 2-3 years time, you'll have no hope of keeping him unless you are winning trophies. I can't see that happening but you never know. I admire your optimism HIAG anyway!!
I'm not going to disagree with you about Arsenal being as bad as the clubs you've named, as they're clearly not, but Fran Merida had to pay €3.2m to Barca after signing for you. He failed to meet the terms of a personal pre-contract agreement, apparently. In other words, you tapped him up.
Completely forgot about him. He moved on because he wanted more game time, and now he is at Hércules, where it seems he still not getting much game time. Shame.
I remember watching him in in the under 17s Euros sometime back, not long after he'd agreed to sign for you I think. He certainly looked a good player back then, then again that whole Spanish side did. I recall making the bold prediction that Bojan would be better than Messi off the back of it! In my defence Messi wasn't the player he is today back then
He's as good as gone if Spurs don't get in top 4 this year and lets face it with the way Chelsea and Arsenal and even Everton too, have started I'd be amazed if that happens looking after respective best 11s and squad depth, although there's always January to reinfoce I suppose. He doesn't strike me as a Matt Le Tissier type either so I know Spurs fans (like we blindly did when we still had Torres/Mascherano etc but no CL trying to kid ourselves that footballers had loyalty) will try and convince themselves he'll stay even if they remain outside of top 4 and continue not to win anything, however experience of similar situations gone before suggest he will want to go and they usually get what they want, even if it takes a while. He won't stay unless they have CL in the next 2 seasons tops. Unless
