We may have a bid from Blackburn, but I don't understand why we'd recall him before the deal was agreed. It sounds more like we're pressuring him into it than trying to force Forest's hand.
I assume we'd only recall him if we were pretty sure we had a deal in place, unless we're just really confident that when pushed, Forest will stump up the cash.
It's more the fact we don't need to recall him. Just sign off the permanent transfer and the loan terminates itself. I suppose it could be to start a bidding war, where leaving him at Forest they could always think we were bluffing about him going elsewhere even if we got as far as ringing them up with one last chance just before signing off the paperwork.
If the boot was on the other foot Billy Davies would do exactly the same to us. Either sign Hobbs or lose him...
Way I see it is there will be no bidding war IF Hobbs has his heart set on Forest which seems likely when you look at Davies comments. You can't spark a price war when Hobbs will just turn other clubs down. Bidding wars only work when the player is motivated by the best deal and isn't bothered by the club. I suggest Hobbs will decline any club we accept an offer from, and no club will make an offer firm of they know he won't talk to them. Outcome: no offers received. He only solution is to call their bluff by recalling him (do we have the grounds to satisfy am emergency recall!?) and do what Slumberland did to us with Elmo. I can't see us doing that as it is risky and we may end up with him back on our wage bill and forest sitting it out until summer. I reckon nothing will change and we don't get a fee, unless his head is turned by another clubs offer. I thought it was odd he went there with no fee anyway, but recall it was to avoid tax somehow? Something about structuring he deal to favour both clubs fiscal issues?
Blackburn and Wigan are likely to offer Hobbs very generous wages, and after all money talks. On the other hand, Billy Davies would never say that Hobbs isn't too bothered about signing!
That's why I said it looks more like we're pressuring him into a deal. A bit of a "you can sit here doing **** all for 6 months, or you can go and sign for them and get playing again" move. We'd be pretty daft to try that, if they were hoping to force our hand it backfired dramatically since he ended up coming back to us on loan for the second half of that season and we only bought him in the summer. I think it was more about letting Hobbs keep his PL wages for a season whilst letting them get the player. What the hell they've been playing at with his precontract that they announced at the time I don't know.
Poor old tight wad Billy Davies. Get your owner to match Readings bid and Jack is yours. We are not a charity. Pay what a rival will pay or suffer. Simples.
He did indeed in Moulton a small village/Hamlet near Spalding just to the south of Lincoln. He played mainly for Lincoln up to the u19s if memory serves me correctly. I saw him play a couple of times. I am pretty sure he still holds the record for the youngest player ever to play for the Imps whilst they were still in the football league. I think he went to Liverpool after that.
See Forrest are asking (indirectly) for us to increase the cost to them of Jack Hobbs. So that'll be £600k to Reading, or £700k to Forrest. That'll test their sense of humour! http://www.ltlf.co.uk/2014/01/steve-bruce-to-sell-own-grandmother/
I don't get the short-sightedness of these deals. Seems to be too often that players go out on long term loan deals which are apparently just an interim thing until a permanent could be sorted yet they get recalled. It's not like they're short of money, why didn't they just sign him in the first place and save all this crap? Same with us last year when we loaned Meyler and Stockdale.
Typical Forest arrogance. I hope we sell Hobbs to Reading and it ends up being the deal that scuppers their promotion campaign.
I don't understand it with Hobbs (since it doesn't appear the permanent deal was done like we were previously told by Forest), but most of ours it's been a case of trying someone out before spending the money needed to sign them. We signed Meyler and Stockdale in October/November so we had no choice about how to sign them initially. When it came to January we signed Meyler, and we extended the Stockdale loan because they didn't want to sell him (presumably we couldn't have bought him straight off either). We did the same thing with Elmo though, and the reason to wait was shown when Sunderland couldn't sell him in January. We got him back on loan again and got to save the transfer money until the summer when we knew we'd been promoted and could afford it.
