The statement doesn't say that to me, though. It says, "We're going to really drag this out and hope that someone comes in with a bigger bid. HELLO! ANY BIG BIDS OUT THERE?!"
Any player is for sale if you are willing to pay a ridiculous price. However, Levy is not renowned for playing that game.
That seems to be the story of our transfer window. We leave it late and get the ones who fall our way more or less by chance, as when N’Jie decided he didn’t fancy the Goons. It’s one of our charms, along with playing the maximum number of exhibitions at the greatest possible distance from each other in the fewest days possible before the PL season starts. Funny we have one point from our first two games.
Yes, it sounds to me as if the WBA board might be positioning themselves with their fans to accept a subsequent bid. And if there is something big to be announced, as OS suggested, I doubt it is, eg, Llorente or Pato
Let's be honest, everyone knows we are panicking about another striker, so drag it out till the final day and get us to pay over the odds.
We're talking about us, not England or QPR! He has 3 league goals in 47 league games. Lennon had 5 league goals in his first 53 league games. Fairly similar but Lennon has other great qualities and you forget how many goals he created by dragging defenders out of position, the mayhem Lennon created shouldn't be ignored, not to mention the great team work and crouch scoring at the san siro. Townsend is just a waste of space in terms of what he offers the team but overall Townsend is a stepdown from Lennon.
This ^ Mentioning Lennon, who came here as an 18 year old and hit the ground running, in the same sentence as Townsend - who after 3 years of top-flight football still looks nothing like a professional footballer, is an insult to the former.
There's surely a player plus cash bargain to be struck? There're in need of strengthening at the back and on the flanks. We happen to have two such examples who won't be playing for the foreseeable future. And they can have Ade too as a free gift.
And can you imagine the last day approaches and we are still farting around. People know there will be a backlash from the fans if the Spurs hierarchy do not deliver..and buying Andy Booth won't cut it. It's obvious we are going to get played. They will probably get Fazio off us for a bag of crisps and agree to sell Berahino for around 18 mill with a few add ons.
Them add ons will drag it to around 23 mill no doubt. Either way we are not going to be dictating this.
If there is any manager that can make Fazio a great premier league defender, then its Pulis, but strange that their chairman went public re the bid for Berahino as now the lad knows we want to sign him, so WBA have in many ways unsettled their own player.
When do we ever? It's bizarre because Levy is pretty much a genius when it comes to fleecing other clubs when selling players, inserting all sorts of sell-on clauses and add-ons. But then when it comes to bringing players in it's as if he thinks no-one else in the footballing world other than Mark Hughes would have noticed that we started the game without a striker on the bench.
Guessing that we had other targets but they didn't work out...otherwise it makes no sense to wait until now to bid on him...they will know we are desperate, as we can't go until January with just 1 striker, so can push the price right up ... and we hve very little time to look elsewhere
True rcl and it does rile me, but this is where that other curse of the modern era actually comes in handy: agent and player power. If we lodge a bid that is basically equal to the glass ceiling of what still constitutes 'sane' money (which is probably slightly north of £20m), and the player and his agent throw the toys out of the pram, there's no logical reason under the sun why a club of WBA's size would dig their heals in for another £5-10m and risk us pulling out of the deal completely and being left with a sulking player. I said to a colleague today in the office that I think that's why all these Pato rumours are suddenly surfacing. I don't think Levy would ever sign the Brazilian; it's just a subtle way to remind WBA and Berahino: we have other targets.