NO MADRID MOVE FOR NEGREDO Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido insists Real Madrid will not utilise their option to buy back striker Alvaro Negredo. Sevilla paid a club record â¬15million (£13million) for the Spain international in 2009, with Madrid inserting a clause whereby they could buy back the striker within two years. Negredo netted a career-high 20 league goals last season, sparking speculation of a return to the Bernabeu, but del Nido can foresee no such transfer. "In the last conversation we had with Real Madrid, they told our director general that they didn't intend to use the re-buy clause," del Nido said. "The player has also said publicly that he doesn't want to leave Sevilla. I don't think there is a chance he won't be a Sevilla player in the coming seasons." Meanwhile, del Nido claims the club have held negotiations with Tottenham forward Giovani dos Santos, who enjoyed a successful loan spell at Racing Santander last season. New Sevilla boss and former Santander manager Marcelino Garcia Toral managed the Mexican for the six-month loan, but del Nido admits the transfer is not a formality. "It is certain that we have spoken with the player (dos Santos) and we interest him, but he is not a unique target for the squad. "I have made it clear that Sevilla will not pay â¬8million (£7million) for the player even without knowing if (Frederic) Kanoute will stay with us."
This was always bollocks, we didn't have the money anyway, it was just an excuse for Duffen to go lording it up on expenses.
Yeah would b a dead cert we would stil b in the prem! One player would have single handedly kept us up!!!
But Dowie only came in March. We would have had Negredo for 2 months before that (when we faced Wolves, Wigan and West Ham and took 1 point).
Just a handful of the West Ham 2006/7 squad: Robert Green Yossi Benayoun Nigel Reo-Coker Bobby Zamora Matthew Etherington Marlon Harewood Lee Bowyer Lucas Neill Mark Noble Luis Boa Morte Carlton Cole Javier Mascherano Teddy Sheringham Matthew Upson Hardly a one man team.
Er, no, I never actually meant it like that. It's all well and good pointing out that they had some players that appear half-decent on paper, but why the **** were they in the bottom-3 on the final day then? It was Tevez who kept them up. Single-handedly. They went down this season with a team of international players. Plus... "Just a handful" of Newcastle United's squad 2008/2009: Michael Owen Mark Viduka Obafemi Martins Damien Duff Alan Smith Sebastien Bassong Shola Ameobi Shay Given Charles N'Zogbia Kevin Nolan Fabricio Coloccini Jonas Gutierrez Jose Enrique
I'm just sayin, 1 overpaid Spanish whizkid would not have saved our team that was stuck in a rut and riddled with a losing mentality!
It's true that neither West Ham or Newcastle should have been in the position they were in, their squads should have been easily good enough.
To be fair, I don't think he would have either! I was trying to point out that it is possible for one player to (pretty much) single-handedly keep a team up!
I'd have gone Geo in the first PL season as my example. Mainly because it was wonder goals that won points/gamees that are stuck in the memory rather than simpler goals that you'd expect any PL player to score when in that position.
He was class at the start of that season, but so were Myhill, Ricketts, Turner, Zayatte, Dawson, Ashbee, Boateng, Marney, King and Cousin.
Geovanni, Turner and King were probably the major players that kept us up. It's impossible to say of course as there are so many what-ifs but take away their goals and we've got nothing.
What I was getting at with him was that with all those other players you could easily name 15 or 20 players that could have done that job, not saying we'd have been able to sign them, but other players exist that in the same position you would have expected to perform the same way. How many players though would have looked to go for shots like Geo's at the Emirates rather than thinking it was vital to keep the ball and build the attack because of how dangerous Arsenal are if you lose the ball. It's the more uniqueness of what he did that makes the claim he kept us up singlehandedly more applicable.
