No Courtois has not played yet - he is "too good" to sit on the bench and that's why he's getting loan experience (he certainly is too good). While Ruddy might not be too good to sit on the bench for Chelsea, if they are going to shell out more than £5m for him I'd say that Ruddy is too expensive to just sit on their bench. I'm surprised that they haven't gone for someone like Dorus De Vries, but presumably Mourinho feels they need a reasonably good keeper even as back up...
I have always said that Ruddy is as, if not more, important to you're success so far than Holt. Considering that Mignolet went for 9 million, i would say you need to be looking in the 10 million + bracket.
Except that Ruddy didn't play when we were in League 1... That's not to say that he hasn't made a massive contribution, particularly last year and the beginning of this year. I suspect, if we keep him, the tide of which player is more important to our success will rapidly swing towards Ruddy though
Big JR is a quality keeper though and whilst no manager is going to say your first choice end of. He may actually believe in himself that he will be able to overcome the current incumbent and perhaps the young starlet. Lets face it the sales pitch from Chelsea is not gonna be, come to Chelsea we will pay you bucket loads to sit on the bench. They will suggest that he could become their number 1 for years to come and help them to PL and Champs league titles, get him the England number 1 playing at a top team and still tell him that they will pay him a bucket load of cash! Some would say that if he had the chance and declined then he would lack confidence in his own ability! (not me he'd be nuts to go there and bench warm!) NCFC, if offered £10M for him, should we turn it down? I think yes, but only if JR wants to stay. £10M is great money for him, but I think his value to us exceeds that and if he's happy to stay then I think ridiculous numbers should be required. Bah!
indeed Rob. He, if he went, might get some game time when the champions league games are midweek. i'd have thought some like de vries, or mark schwarzer, would be good as a back up
For what it's worth, I don't think he would go to any club where he wouldn't be number 1. He seemed pissed off with all the loan moves when he arrived and I remember him at the time saying he can't wait to settle down and play games for a team on a permanent basis. I don't think he would move, but at the same time if £12 million was the offer, I would accept.
You make a very good point. I say we should accept if we get anything over £10m or so (closer to £12m would be preferable) if he wants to leave, but only if we get the deal done and dusted within the next three weeks. We need plenty of time to invest the money in a top class number one as a replacement, like Benoit Costil or Marc-Andre ter Stegen.
£10M is a hell of a lot of money especially for a goalkeeper. Fact is though, we don't need the money, we don't need to sell him and I wouldn't have thought CH would want to sell him. Brian Clough once said; "A good goalkeeper is worth an extra 10 points a season" (or something like that). What if we sell JR then get relegated ? He's on a long contract and the club holds all the cards, IMO we should pull out all the stops to keep him our Premier League survival next season could well depend on it. Look what happened when we lost him for six months last year, why sell him for £10M when we would have to spend more than half of that to get in a suitable replacement ? Makes no sense, if JR makes it clear he wants to go and puts in a transfer request then that's a different matter. Somehow though, I don't think he will
I wouldnt sell Ruddy unless he intimates that he wants to leave. If that was the case then I would like to think £12m would be what we are after. I really would rather keep him and know that we have absolute faith in our current keeper. I genuinely think he is one of the best Premier League keepers and he is English. I know there are knew rules regarding british players so why would we want to get rid of one of our best ones? I also think this may be influencing Chelsea's decision on who they go for as they are no doubt trying to ensure they have the correct quota of players.
if Big John is sold we must buy a very good replacement. we cannot go into a full season with Bunn as our No 1. he is a decent keeper but his ball distribution consists solely of a big punt down field. it was very noticeable when Ruddy came back that he threw out to the defense so that we retained control. what happened? we won both games. also by starting from the back we brought the mid-field more into the game, thus Howsons two goals. i can't believe that with our keeper coach Bunn was still punting it long.
Hi all, new to the forum, been reading for a bit, finally decided to join! Spot on with this part of your post, he isn't just a good goalie, the team performed better as soon as he was back from injury, Norwich are a different team when he is on the pitch! That is irreplaceable!
Thanks, on another note, anyone know what happened to the rumours around Harry Arter?, CH lost interest?
I didn't think it ever held any water - Arter doesn't seem like the type of player we'd be interested in now, although do you know anything more about him?
