Summer 2014 Transfer rumour thread - Part VI

We just dont have the guts to play hard ball. Lallana leaving sets a precident- no players will respect the board and contracts are null and void.

What we should do? Stick him in the reserves and let him rot until he learns what a contract it and how respect works. What will we do? Pretend were being tough and sell him in a week for market value. "The sále of of dejan will allow us to strengthen the first team further". We are a joke, i would rather we pour his salary down the drain and make a stand- yes it makes next season slightly harder but in the long run could save us a lot of heartache.

 

Part of me would love us to make a stand but rotten apples poison the barrel. We need a team fighting for each other so if he wont play ball ship him out.

 

So glad none of our fans run the club. If he's agitating to move and you set an asking price then you control the timeframe for his departure and replacement. Who really wins by keeping him in the reserves? Dejan. He collects a salary, whinges, doesn't play and then moves later for significantly less money.

Sell him. Replace him. Move on. He is getting his agents to leak crap about the club to papers, there's no way back on him and it's silly to blame the board for his unprofessional behavior.

 

Thing is though if he strikes i highly doubt he'll get paid (or he'll get fined his income) and he would surely be aware that if the board keep him in reserves for a while to teach him a lesson any interest from other clubs would disappear meaning he loses big time.

In my opinion the board needs to stand firm on this one. He's been here 1 YEAR (which has been his only his good year recently) and suddenly he feels too good for us? Tough ****. He needs to realise that the board have the power and that the manager and chairman that trusted and liked him enough to bring him over are gone and the new manager doesnt know him an has absolutely no reason to give him preferential treatment or give into his demand.

 

Okay, so, in your universe, where players are never able to force a move and contracts are actually worth the paper they are printed on, what happens?

After we refuse a move and just ignore him does Dejan just hold his hands up and say "Yeah, alright guv."?

Or does he continue to bitch and moan and have his agents continue to leak nonsense about how miserable things are at the club which then actually impedes our ability to bring in others by damaging reputation and morale.

Some of you put too much faith in contracts. I have a year's contract signed for a new job starting in September, however I have all the power in this agreement. They can't force me to fulfil my duties, or even show up! They are counting on me to be a professional, as we do with the players. Dejan is not looking like he's going to play ball. He wants out and he's pushing hard.

So in summation.

We sell him now: We get plenty of time to find a new player (or 2). We get more money. We save on his salary.

We stonewall him: We get a silly bastard running around talking **** while we still pay him for (possibly) substandard performance. Oh but we do 'set an example' to others! Who would still want to leave if offers came in from bigger clubs regardless of what happens with Dejan.

 

Perhaps we could hold a public execution of Dejan (no bitching then), followed by Les Reed turning to Schneiderlin, whilst holding the still smoking gun, and asking, 'Now, what did you want to ask me, Morgan.'

Players agitate moves from clubs all the time, even the top sides, but what is different is the sheer number of players. This is probably due to us being a successful, but ultimately unfashionable, club that cannot compete for wages. There is the danger that one day a player will take a team to court over a football contract...I doubt that we are willing to waste the time or money on fighting a court case. However, let's see how this pans out...his agent may be doing the talking, but perhaps Dejan can yet be talked round #eternaloptimist

On a side note, someone said on tv that pessimists are as likely to be right as optimists, but they don't have as much fun. Some truth in that

 

Liverpool truly has egg on their faces after refusing Suarez's demands for a move last year.

 

I agree that players hanging around in this kind of situation will cause more problems that we can imagine. Lawyers have said to me that contracts are merely pre-arranged divorce papers, so you would not want to prolong the "agony" by having your soon-to-be-ex living in the same house until he or she goes a year later, would you? Get a good settlement preferably with an over-sized payout and without spending thousands on the divorce lawyers and lots of time managing the situation, until they finally go. Then taking the analogy further go and find a better looking more willing new partner!

 

The Echo seem to have suggested that Lovren & presumably the others are unsettled because quote "The Project has completely changed". Does that mean the aspiration of Cortese / Poch was CL and now it's stabilising and a lot less ambitious ?

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/11319578.Fine_times_for_Lovren/?ref=mac

 

Or the project is now more achievable. Nicola delivered all he promised before, but that doesn't mean he wasn't deluded talking about the CL in the short term. It could be not that Saints lied to players, but that Nicola did...remember the money was never his. Ron is talking about European football (meaning the Europa)...now top six is more realistic. We only need to have a good season, coinciding with a couple of teams doing poorly, whereas to achieve the Champions League, we would need a major collapse of the big clubs...United won't do that again. Over the next twenty years...who knows, but short term never.

Dejan's beef should be with Nicola, not the team.

 

Get a new player or 2 to do what? Play well for 1 season and then watch them leave the moment someone flashes cash?

Lots of players kick up a fuss about wanting to leave whatever club they're at when they get told no. Once its clear that they're stuck most of them settle down and return to the routine to maybe get a move at a future point.

 

In the position we are in it is a catch22. Yes we might look a soft touch selling playersbut, at the same time we are showing other clubs that they are going to have to pay a good wedge for them.

On the other hand we can make them rot in the reserves.

The latter option could be disastrous for us. We are in the market for players that will hopefully be able to move us up the league a place or 2. They are likely to be players that are utilising us to get on the Premier League ladder / shop window. If players of that standard see that we make things hard for players if a 'bigger club' comes in then will these players come to us in the first place? I would say no, they will go to a different club, maybe lower than us.

We can't have it both ways. We are trying to get players that the bigger clubs would happily add as squad players. We can't scare them all off by showing them if they come here they might get stuck here? We will have to accept we are a short term stop for these type of players UNTIL we are in a position to hold on to them due to rising a few places in the league and stature.

 

Lets set a new precedent and take him to court for breach of contract; win a couple of mill, send him on loan to Eastleigh, then sell him for a huge profit in January.

Seriously though, if he is refusing to play, that must surely be a breach of contract. Maybe, contracts need to be tighter so that the consequences of taking such a stand can be spelt out in advance.

 

No, I don't think there is a breach of contract (though I imagine it's justifiable in that situation to not pay him). Contracts in football are already far more restrictive than in any other walk of life; to force them to play or be sued would be taking the piss. They're humans. Besides if he's forced to play, to you expect him to play well?

 

But thats only assuming he wouldnt play properly once he's told no. As i said earlier most player that kick up a fuss about a refused transfer go back to normal after that as any continuing petulance harms their game time and acts as a deterrent to potentially interested teams who don't want to deal with the same thing in the future.

 

If anyone offers £20-25m then reluctantly I would sell him...we could get the likes of Caulker, De Vijk and Kongolo all for about the same fee. Result and gets us depth of squad instead of relying on one player

 

No, I don't want to force him to play but I want there to be meaningful consequences for players who refuse to play.

 

Yeah, just don't pay them.

 

SSN reporting we are in talks with LFC for the fee.

 

Aside from the immediate problem of how to deal with Lovren, and possibly Schneiderlin, the board have to do some Root Cause Analysis of how this situation has been allowed to develop. We all have our own views on this forum, but without all the facts at our disposal, our views, while entertaining, are irrelevant. The club has to ask some serious questions about itself and its former employees to find out why so many players wanted to leave after a very successful season.