£20m for McCarthy is way too steep, he's a good player but definitely not a £20m one. He's not a major upgrade (if at all) I feel on what we have so don't see the point in spending big on someone like that, I don't think Everton would sell anyway, would show a massive lack of ambition on their part as they are one of our direct rivals for a top 6 spot, despite a poor finish for them last season. Don't know enough about Suarez to say if he'd be a good fit or not, Cabaye I'd take if he's available for a good price.
McCarthy is well worth £20m in todays market. He's a massively underated player, and he's the lynchpin of our side, we'd be barking to sell him. Can't see this one being anything other than paper talk
The stories doing the rounds a few weeks ago was we offered him £25k a week, which is what Mason's on - but he wanted parity with Kane and Eriksen on £40k a week. If there's any truth to that, it's no surprise that we came to an agreement shortly after getting Paulinho off the wage bill.
According to the Standard, Alderweireld has passed a medical for us and is about to sign. Good news if true. Vertonghen, Dier and Alderweireld (Aldy from now on?) would make good options in the Centre of defence. Wimmer I don't know about, but hopefully that will be 4 good options. No need for Kaboul (sadly) or Vlad anymore I think. http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...-likely-to-get-share-of-the-fee-10370980.html
For what, signing a player we've held an interest in for at least two or three years, probably more? Athletico Madrid are the ones who have done you over here, by using Southampton as a literal shop window by inserting a clause in the deal so they could buy out your right to buy Alderweireld if he performed well enough to sell for a bigger fee.
I think that is the correct way to look at it! A player at the end of his contract is worth exactly nothing so you have to depreciate the transfer fee. If you paid £20m for someone and gave him a four year deal then your effectively saying his value to you is more than £5m a year plus his wages. You write off his costs at £5m a year plus his wages and then if you sell him for £10m with one year to go you have indeed made a profit. But this is also why buying players is a bad idea in general. To get a transfer done you have to both beat the player's current wages AND pay the selling club a fee. You therefore have to value him much higher than the selling club who can keep him by offering him just the increased wages. You'd expect to overpay most of the time unless you are a much better judge of the player's potential than the selling club which would be a bit strange since they see him every day in training and you only see him during matches. This is why I am opposed to the coach/manager having much say in the selection of players. There is no logical way he can know enough to be a good judge of value.
Except very rarely does a player get to run down their contract and leave on a free. They usually either go earlier for a fee or sign a new contract. In accounting terms the transfer fee has to be written off over the life of the contract, but in real terms it is only when a player leaves that the true cost can be determined. I'd like to see the bookkeeping on the Asset that was Gareth Bale!
"I knew you'd throw a wobbly about this, but I'm not sure what you think Spurs have done wrong." I would not be surprised if Levy has gone a bit 'Standard Liege' on this one.
You haven't done anything wrong. If he signs for you, he's a cracking player. Really very, very good. Atletico though...well they can do one.
Well, it all began when Martin Chivers beat the cr4p out of Spurs and Daniels great great great grandad waved his cheque book at him..... please log in to view this image
That's a very old pint of bitter you're sipping on! Anyone would think that Southampton had never bought a player.
To be fair to Saints supporters, the signing of Gareth Bale proved to be the biggest mugging ever done. Getting them to waive sell-on fees for Button(?) just rubbed salt into the wounds. I'd probably never get over that.
Local boy. One of our own you know? There's a song there somewhere. Pub quiz question. Name the only professional footballer with the middle name 'Harcourt'? You'll never guess.
There should not be such animosity between Spurs and Soton. They sell their over-rated players to the Poool, making a killing and keeping the Mouser Watch article ever strong.
Was Turan the player who started ahead of Suarez? If so, Suarez is probably not for sale. Anyway, I don’t know that much about him either, except that he’s a deep lying player for Atletico, has started while they won trophies, and plays for a manager who’s constantly screaming at his team to push up. But I’m surprised Cabaye isn’t on more teams’ wish lists. There just aren’t that many deep lying playmakers, and teams that don’t really have one (like us) could probably use one.