You clearly haven’t read what I’ve written on this thread. I’ve stated that I do rate him, would like to sign him but just worry about the gamble in terms of outlay. If he scores 12+ then it’d be an amazing signing. If he’s guaranteed to do that, as you suggest, then perhaps all of the other managers in this division ‘know nowt’ too.
When there is just over a week to go in the window and we need a striker, almost every signing is a gamble.
I must admit, I thought this bid was paper talk. If it does go through, let's pray you optimists are proved correct.
12m would be the biggest gamble in the club's transfer history so far. Is this a concept that is too difficult for people to comprehend?
Where did I say I didn't understand? Only that any player we sign would be a gamble. Is it too difficult to understand that the risk is negated by the amount we received for Long? The club has to continue to grow and by sticking the the same £5-7m bids for strikers will see us stall.
It is a shed load of money but it's also what we got for Long. I'm attempting to look at it as though we've done a swap in which case we'd have paid the same as we had for Long &, IMO, have a more threatening player in front of goal.
According to one report I saw we offer £8M with £4m as add on for each year we stay in the EPL, so maybe a 4 year contract with an extra £1M each year we stay in the top flight.
Most of the above would seem to suggest that the offer of £8m up front with another £4m in adds ons based on various criteria, which has been mooted, would make a lot of sense for us to have offered. However, whether we actually have or if this might actually be sufficiently attractive to Blackburn is a whole different matter. Personally, I haven't seen a great deal of Rhodes but strangely enough I have been invited to the Blackburn game on Saturday, so it will be interesting (assuming he's still there and not left out pending negotiations) to see if he does look like the type of player that we need. I can't really imagine that he wouldn't still score goals if he came into the Prem, just possibly not quite as frequently but even if he got us 10 a season that would make a massive difference and is likely to be more than we would have got from Long. Don't get me wrong I wanted us to sign Long, as I've always rated him as a player but realistically he doesn't score enough goals at this level to justify a £12.5m price tag, whether or not the same can be said for Rhodes will depend upon someone taking a chance on him if the price is not prohibitive.
A lot of the comments on the SSN site are saying Blackburn will be making a mistake selling him for less than £15m.
If the signing comes off, it'd be interesting to revisit this thread in one or two years time. I sincerely hope my caution is proved unfounded.
If this was to replace Jela I would be very happy with it but he certainly isn't a replacement for Long. Hopefully if we get Rhodes we also get a pacy, tenacious striker in as well, probably a young player on loan.
We've enquired according to the BBC, which is basically asking how much it'll cost. However, SSN and Gary Bowyer have said a bid has been made and passed on to the owners. You wouldn't pass an enquiry on to the owners, the chief exec would've had just rejected it if it weren't good enough. There'll have been a bid that will have made them sit up and take notice, enough to notify the owners that we're serious. If it's more than £10m up front, I can see them accepting as the potential for profit would be very tempting.
