Happy for him to go ? No. But IF he wants to leave and we get a good fee, Ok. Chelsea are rumoured to be sniffing about...he lives near oxshott. If they came knocking , he'd push to leave I'd expect. I'm be ok with that. We've been scouting the position and of course would need a replacement in first. Sell in the summer is better obviously but money talks.....and we supposedly have x@#$ all.
He’s also approaching an age where his value probably won’t go higher than what it is now. However I’m sure I saw a feature with him on Sky where he’s been doing a qualification of some sort about the business side of the game, so there’s potential he’d be keen to move onto the board/behind the scenes here when he retires. So I’d prefer to keep him but it all depends on if we get an offer and how big that offer is.
Sorry, are we seriously talking about selling Bertrand? The reason we’ve been in trouble for three seasons is precisely because we keep doing this, selling out best players. No way should we even be considering this.
Bertie is not just a very good full back but unlike many footballers he is very intelligent. He has successful business interests outside of football and I am sure he knows where he is in his career and what he is going to do when he stops playing. The fact that he is already undergoing business training should tell you he has his future plans in place now and if Saints plan to sell him he will only go if it fits in with his plans. If it doesn't my money is on him staying. Also we have a replacement for him in the Under 23s who just needs a little more time and he will cost us nothing and continue our practice of bringing players through our academy. Centre back is our real issue at the moment and that needs to be addressed urgently.
I get the feeling Bertie's head has been turned in the past, but now he is happy to go with the flow. By that I don't think he will agitate for a move, but if a decent opportunity arises then he would consider it. As St Godders said, he is one of those rare breed of footballers who can (and probably will) have a business career outside football. For once I am not knocking the intelligence of footballers - after all they are paid to use their talent to entertain us, not their brain. I remember Beckham once in an interview was asked what he thought when people said he was thick. He replied that he is paid to kick a football around a pitch and he can do that rather well. He isn't employed to work out complex maths equations (ok I am paraphrasing here) so why is it an issue. Just saying. I may be able to do stuff in IT that is beyond some, but I can't build a brick wall or a cupboard (that isn't flat packed). It takes different strokes to rule the world. Intelligence is subjective IMO.
In a squad that will largely be made up of young players it is important to have 1 or 2 with experience - it also helps if these players have been with the club for a long time. IMO we should keep Bertrand as he is pretty reliable and one of our only long serving players. Plus if we sell him that will be us starting next season with a new first choice, RB, LB & CB. That much upheaval in one window is risky.
When I got my (to me rather unimpressive, but it’s all relative) haul of O Levels, a very unacademic mate observed that he bet I couldn’t strip the gearbox of a Ford Cortina
I can change the head gasket on a Triumph Spitfire in about 40 mins though, including head removal, cleaning up and torquing the nuts. The secret in a good seal is actually in the nuts and the torque..and doing it in the right order I say 40 mins, but haven't done it for a few years. I have an 1976 Spitfire 1500 and it used to blow the gasket quite often due to my racing head I put on it, using pattern parts it would blow every few months - normally I changed it at home as it was a small blow or leak, but once it really went and I couldn't limp home so changed it in Tesco Car park. I finally located an original gasket (I bought two for good measure) from an old British Leyland dealership in Birmingham and didn't have any trouble after that.
We’re only talking ( on the Transfer thread ) about the possibility, as he’s been linked with Leicester and Chelsea. Chelsea being a club I’m sure he’d favour if the RUMOUR is true for obvious reasons. I’d like to keep him till the summer but as others have said his value will only decrease further now. Having scouted the position we’d need a good replacement lined up to make it worth while. That’s all I was saying. It’s paper talk, he’ll be here Feb 1st anyway.
I changed the head gasket on a Ford Fiesta once. Took two of us about two days, and no torque wrench so still got water in the oil after
Nevertheless, if he won't sign a new deal then I'd be very surprised if he was here at the beginning of next season.
Oh I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go. Gutted, but not surprised. I’ve been one of his harshest critics for the last couple of seasons btw. But he’s still technically head and shoulders above most of our squad. Don’t want to lose him, happy to see him gradually give way to a young understudy. Yeah, who am I kidding, that won’t happen.
Yeah I agree that I would certainly like him to stay, just can see him refusing to sign a new deal which will mean the club would want to sell imo.
He's playing reasonably well and can also play CB. Don’t see the point in buying another CB now (didn’t think I’d say that a month or so back!!). You just can’t drop either of the current two given their recent firm and Yosh / Vest are ‘competing’.
New Manager , new owner , 35 new players all on £500,000. PW ( Minimum ) or I am done with this club .