And puts to bed many posters theories that we will not spend money. If we fail to land a first class, by our standards, defender, it will not be for want of trying.
There's a retired sports journalist called John Graham on twitter who reckons Grabban to Brighton for an undisclosed fee is on the cards. On the less reliable end of the twitter spectrum (I mean the high end of that spectrum is unreliable, god knows what the bottom is...), "@NcfcRummors" reckons Russell Martin will join Blackburn for £3.4m, and that we're slow to do business as we're waiting on a potential £18m signing. In another tweet they reckon that's what QPR would sell Austin for. Also gazing into their crystal ball, Byram will cost us £7m + Lafferty, and Alex Pritchard £4m. Also linking us to Gnabry and Caulker, plus Ruddy to Liverpool. At the rate he's tweeting deals at, we'll have a second 25 man squad by the middle of the month.
ITK! So, we're buying a player for £18m and selling Redders to up to 4 potential suitors for £15. So for a net outlay of circa £3m, we can take on the world!! I like this twitter guy
Well DH, some odd deals reportedly on the cards and IMO, I'd be surprised of more than a couple come off, but having said that, about the only ones I WOULDN'T like to see are the Austin and JR ones. I don't think Austin is worth that sort of money and if we sell JR, who's going to be our reserve keeper?? Edit - I really hope we hear news of ACTUAL signings before we play Bournemouth and it's not going to be a case of dong business just as the window slams shut on 1st Feb - especially as AN said he wanted to complete his transfer dealings early!!!!!
Think we are always going to find it difficult persuading, particularly foreign players to take the plunge and join, however much money we´re prepared to throw around, despite being in the, for us, fairly healthy position of 15th. I know Pinto apparently is on the verge, but those of better quality in the CD position, that we´re supposed to have tried to entice, have so far all turned us down. Think that´s a scenario we will continue to see throughout January, perhaps we should set our sights a bit lower and maybe even stick to this side of the Channel, which might then result in more realistic targets becoming interested.
Quite right RBF and Pinto is a good example. I hope we're not going to go down the same road we did in the summer, being turned down player after player (actually the same players all over again in some cases). Most of those players want Championship League appearances and that is simply not something we can offer. Our survival chances could suffer if we fail once again to sign a quality CB in this window.
Not sure if it's been mentioned but no Naismith on the bench for Everton tonight. A sign he is on his way I reckon.
So not even good enough for Everton's bench in a League Cup tie? Yet we're prepared to pay £8M for the ol' timer?
Surely Martinez doesn't need to drag this out to the end of the Jan window if Naismith is not even getting a look in for the league cup games. Bit of cash and free up another salary for his own Jan shopping I'd have thought.
I think I saw earlier that Everton are on the verge of signing some striker so hopefully that'll free Naismith up
Rumour on the PinkUn Board that Timm Klose, a CB from Wolfsburg, arrived in the Fair City on the Braunsweig flight yesterday: "I saw on Twitter someone said a friend of a friend saw him at the airport. Braunschweig is only around 30 mins from Wolfsburg so could have been the flight yesterday." Klose's agent is Gaetano Giallanza (he played for City from 2000-2002). As rumours go it's still pretty thin, but there is some logic to it.